Sermon Tone Analysis

GOOD INTENTIONS

Picture yourself as an actual survivor of 9/11.

How would you feel about those events?

Would you ever forget them?

Would they fade in your memory over time?

Of course not!

Those who lived through it will never forget those images and memories.

Over two decades have passed but the wounds are still raw in our minds.

But for the sake of argument, how long would it take for you if you lived through it to forget the lessons learned.

30 years?

50 years?

Never?

Now let’s go back 4,000 years to the crossing of the Red Sea by the Hebrews.

Picture the vision of a sea being held back and walking on dry ground.

It is a scene that will never be repeated.

Now watch as the Egyptian army pursues you through the same open sea.

You watch in awe as the sea sweeps back in and drowns the entire army.

Bodies wash up on the shore but most of the army will never be seen again.

How long do you think it would take for those memories to fade?

50 years?

A lifetime?

A generation?

Today, I want us to see how quickly we can forget what God has done for us if we aren’t careful.

There are some things that we should never forget!

Invocation

Lord of Sinai, your presence shook the mountain and lightning filled the air.

The people feared for the lives because You came near to them.

Yet, in a town called Bethlehem you came to be among us and on a hill called Golgotha, you died to make us one with you.

Help us, Lord, never to forget what you have done and what has been done for us in Jesus name.

Amen.

Message:

A man thinks his wife is losing her hearing.

A doctor suggests that he try a simple at-home test: Stand behind her, ask her a question from different distances, and see when she can hear it.

The man goes home, sees his wife in the kitchen facing the stove, and asks from the door, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

No answer.

Ten feet behind her, he repeats, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

Still no answer.

Finally, right behind her he says, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

His wife turns around and says, “For the third time—chicken.”

Now we have to be careful when I tell you how long Israel remembered their Red Sea miracle.

Like that husband, the answer may be speaking about us as well.

So how long did the Red Sea miracle last?

The Word tells us how long it took for Israel to forget.

Three days!

The miracle of the Egyptian defeat quickly disappeared when, three days into the desert, they were dying of thirst.

Granted, the people feared for their lives, but they had just witnessed the power of God.

You and I wonder how they could even do such a thing.

Yet, Moses prayed to God, who showed him how to give them water.

What was established was a pattern that would be repeated all alone the journey to Sinai.

(1) Something causes dissatisfaction.

(2) The people mutter against Moses and God.

(3) God responds graciously and provides what the people need or want.

(4) Rather than being thankful, the people become more dissatisfied and more rebellious (16:1–12; 17:1–7).

I remember years ago that “permissive” child-rearing was popular.

The theory was, let the child do what they want, and their natural beauty will unfold like petals of a flower.

The only problem was that permissive child-rearing produced the selfish, unproductive, and dissatisfied adults we see so much today, just like the mercy that God displayed during the three-month journey to Sinai allowed the Israelites to become more dissatisfied and more rebellious.

God would eventually address that rebellion but there is a lesson to be learned.

Grace without responsibility, like love without discipline, doesn’t promote healthy relationships with God or man.

Did you hear about the Texas teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten students put on his cowboy boots?

He asked for help, and she could see why.

Even with her pulling and him pushing, the little boots still didn't want to go on.

By the time they got the second boot on, she had worked up a sweat.

She almost cried when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong feet."

She looked, and sure enough, they were.

It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on.

She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on, this time on the right feet.

He then announced, "These aren't my boots."

She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why didn't you say so?"

Once again, she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off his little feet.

She mustered up what grace and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again.

She made sure they were the right boots but it didn’t make it any easier.

Helping him into his coat, she asked, "Now, where are your mittens?"

He said, "I stuffed 'em in the toes of my boots."

The behavior of the Israelites on the journey to Sinai shows us that God had found the perfect time to introduce the Law.

It was the Law that would make them a nation and not slaves.

The Law, with its clear standards, served to make the Israelites responsible for their actions, and provided God with a basis on which He could discipline when His people did wrong.

Slaves never ask why they suffer.

Their just slaves.

But a nation wants to know what is right and what is wrong.

Today God deals with us in grace.

Still, He is too wise and too loving to give us everything we want or think we need.

God continues to discipline Christians, not to punish but to guide us.

Hebrews 12:10 says He “disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness.”

(That we may be different from this world)

God made some amazing promises to the Israelites during this period.

One was that He would protect them from disease.

Can you imagine?

Never being sick.

Paul’s experience (2 Cor 12:1–10) shows us that Christians are not guaranteed healing but that God may actually use physical illness to accomplish spiritual purposes in our lives.

If nothing else, illness and disease will certainly get our attention.

But God wasn’t done with miracles.

He begins to feed this nation with something called ‘manna’.

Now, some suggest that manna was really the excretion of a desert plant, the tamarisk tree, which drops to the ground and hardens into a sweet substance.

So how do we know that manna, whatever it was; was the product of a miracle.

Think of it this way.

Enough manna was produced every day to feed millions; it was available everywhere the people went for some 40 years; it appeared only six days a week, never the seventh.

On the sixth day, the manna that had been collected bred worms when kept overnight, died, and could be made into cakes like bread.

How ironic that the bread of His Table we ate today was the result of His death, and it provides us spiritual food to keep our spirits alive.

In Scripture, manna always served as a symbol of God’s provision.

That’s because the Lord knows our basic needs and He acts to meet them.