God's Cure For Hiccups

God’s cure for Hiccups..

Today I would like to give a sermon on how God can cure Hiccups.

Drink a glass of water - have someone creep up behind you and burst a paper bag -

Stand on your head and drink a glass of water - there must be a book somewhere called a thousand and one cures for hiccups.

All kinds of hiccups happen in life - the bank balance is in debit and you thought it was in credit - whoops that’s a pretty big hiccup.

You were visiting your rich Aunt the one you were planning to receive a inheritence from and all goes well until you back over her cat in the drive.

Life has lots of hiccups. .

Today I would like to suggest that John chapter 3 and verse 16 is a great cure for lifes hiccups.

It is true that life

Moses struck many major hiccups when he led the people of Israel through the desert.

One such time you can read about in Numbers chapter 21 verses 4 - 9

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!

Then the Lord sent venemous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the lord and against you. Pray that the lord will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

The Lord said to moses, "Make a snake and put it on a pole, anyone bitten can look at it and live. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake he lived.

This was a major hiccup for the people of Israel. We read - Many Israelites died.

That is a big hiccup.

What caused it - the people were complaining against God and against Moses.

The complaint against their leaders and against God are common enough ones in the Christian church today.

Constantly I hear complaints about christian leaders and very often I hear complaints about God.

God has ordained that the church has leaders - the church is not some kind of leaderless mob that rushes around doing whatever it likes like a headless hen.

God has appointed leadership - sometimes that leadership is good - like the apostles were in Jerusalem -

Sometimes it is not so good..

There are plenty examples of both in the scriptures.

Hebrews 13 verse 17 says - obey your leaders and submit to their authority., They keep watch over you as men who must give account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Leadership must give account to God of how it has carried out it’s responsibility.

All of us are under leadership - we must obey the leadership that God has put over us.

The only exception to that would be except when what they ask is in clear contridiction to the word of God.

Getting back to Moses - the people were complaining because they had caused their own frustration -

They said:-

"Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!

But the truth is in Numbers chapter 14 the people had missed God’s opportunity to enter into the promised land. God had opened the door up for the people to take possesion of the land but they had failed to trust Him - as a result they wandered in the desert for 40 years - What they blamed Moses and God for was really their own doing.

It is little wonder then that God allowed snakes to come into their midst and wrought destruction.

How many of lifes situations are like this?

Our misery is caused by our failure to take the ground God has given us and as a result we blame whoever or whatever is around.

I once worked with a young man who seemed to have the ball at his feet.

He was musically talented - had a lovely wife and family and a good job.

Then one day the police arrived at work and took this man from his desk in his business suit off to prison.

He was booked on serious drug charges which meant much of what he had was under threat -