Deadly Examples

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I want to invite you to remain standing and open your Bibles with me to the 10th chapter of 1 Corinthians.
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1 Corinthians chapter 10 we're going to be reading verses 6 to 13.
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Now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did.
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Do not be idolaters as some of them were.
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As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
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We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23,000 fell in a single day.
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We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.
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Now these things happen to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.
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Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
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No temptation has overtaken you.
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That is not common to man.
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God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
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But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
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Merciful God, creator of all things seen and unseen.
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Lord, may we at this moment humble ourselves before the written word of God, learning from the examples of those who came before us eons ago, knowing, Lord, that the very same sins that infected Israel as a nation coming out of Egypt continue to plague your people today.
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Not just those outside the church, but these very sins that are referenced in this text, these deadly examples that are referenced in this text are found in bodies that call themselves churches.
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God, may it be that we see where we need to repent and repent willingly and and repent.
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By the power of the spirit, that it would be a true repentance, I pray, oh, God, that you would keep me from error as I preach these things and that you would be glorified in it and Lord, as you see fit to save those who are not and Lord, to rebuke those who are.
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In need of a rebuke, Father, I thank you for your word, may it be pleasing to you as it's preached now in Christ's name, Amen.
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Recently, I was watching a series of videos that showed terrible automobile accidents.
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Some of them were caught on cameras that were around connected to stoplights and things like that.
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So they got a bird's eye view of the accident.
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Some of them were dashboard cameras.
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So it was almost like you're sitting in the car watching the car careen off or go into an accident with other cars and dashboard cameras have actually become very popular because of insurance and things like that, being able to prove culpability.
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And so these videos are much more available now than they ever have been in the past.
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And one that I was watching, one of these accident videos showed a small car, not much bigger than a little hatchback that was weaving in and out of four lanes of traffic, traveling at very, very high speeds.
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And at one point there were several big rigs that had sort of lined up beside one another and this little car was making its way in between these big rigs.
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And so they it was whipping from the left and whipping to the right.
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And it decided the driver decided he or she didn't indicate was going to go across four lanes of traffic to get off at the off ramp.
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But because there were all of these semi trucks, you couldn't see that there was a car stalled on the off ramp.
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And so all you see is a little small silver car go across four lanes of traffic and stop immediately as it smashed into pieces into the back of a parked car on the off ramp.
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And I was stunned.
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I wasn't expecting that.
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I was expecting her to hit one of the semis, you know, because I knew it was an accident.
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That was coming, but I didn't expect her to to careen off and smash into a parked car.
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And as soon as I saw it, I said, man, I have to show this to my kids.
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My children are both drivers now and have been drivers for several years, and and yet I worry about them every time they leave the house because I know how dangerous automobiles can be.
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And I thought, you know, this this this is a good lesson for me.
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First thing, because I've done foolish things behind the wheel, and I know you all probably can agree we've all done things we at the moment felt right.
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We look back and said, well, thank God I'm alive.
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But videos like that are good lessons for things not to do.
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It's a good example.
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And it's and it's a it's a very strong visual that remains to me that I haven't seen that video in a long time.
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But I remember that picture, even though it was several weeks ago, that little silver car making its way into the back of that other vehicle and certainly dying as a result of that accident.
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And like I said, the first thing I said was, my kids need to see this.
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I don't want them to make this mistake.
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I don't want them to make this error of judgment that can be deadly.
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I want to give them an illustration that's going to stick in their mind and hopefully keep them from this deadly error.
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Well, today's text is basically the same thing.
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The Apostle Paul doesn't have video equipment, obviously, in the first century.
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He doesn't have a tape that he can show or or a YouTube video that he can pull up, but he is still going to bring to the mind of his hearers.
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A picture, a deadly example of something that has happened in their past and said, here is what I want you to look at.
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Here's what I want you to think about.
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Here is something you can learn from.
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You can learn from the errors of another.
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So we're going to begin in verse six.
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And verse six says this, says, now these things took place as examples for us.
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Now, it's important to understand what things he's talking about.
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And for those of you who have been here, you know, we've been in this text for a few weeks and you may or may not remember the context here.
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But the context in chapter 10, verses one through five, is the wilderness wanderings of the people of Israel when they left Egypt and they parted the Red Sea and came through and they went out into the wilderness.
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They spent 40 years in the wilderness because of disobedience.
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What should have taken only a few days of traveling ended up taking 40 years of circling through and circling through the wilderness because of their disobedience.
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And Paul says in verse six, now these things referring to their behavior in the wilderness, these things took place as examples for us.
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The word examples, there is two poi.
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It's where we get the word type.
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I mentioned last week that the subject typology and we talked about the fact that some things are types of Christ.
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Paul says the rock was Christ and thus the rock is a type of Christ.
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But there can be other things that are typical as well.
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Other things in the Old Testament that typify New Testament realities, and sometimes those types are examples of what not to do.
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There are types of misbehavior, there are types of sinful behavior that we look at and say, I don't want to do that.
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I don't I don't want to be like that.
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I don't want to follow that example there to be avoided.
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Paul says these things took place as as examples or types for us that we might not desire evil as they did.
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That word desire evil means to passion after it or to crave it or lust after it.
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They were lusting after evil.
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May we not do the same, Paul says.
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Let us look to them.
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Let us look to their example.
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Let us look to this car wreck that was the 40 year wandering and let us not do the same.
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At this point, Paul outlines three and you could argue for, but I'm going to make it three because the last two, I think, go together.
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There are four specific references.
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But as I said, I put the last two together to make it three, not just because I'm sold on three points in a poem as the way you're supposed to do a sermon, but but for this particular thing, I do think the last two are indicative of one central issue, and that is the issue of complaining, grumbling against the Lord, putting the Lord to the test is the way Paul uses the phrase.
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So the three things that we see, the three sinful behaviors of Israel's one is idolatry, two is sexual immorality and three is putting Christ to the test or grumbling and grumbling, we could say.
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And and before we go into those and we're going to break them down as an outline, we're going to look at each one.
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And I have a lot to say today.
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And I hope you're not too hungry because we're going to be here a hot minute while I go through this, because this is important.
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But before I even get there, I want to say this.
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Why did Paul choose these sins? Why did Paul choose these things from Israel's past to deal with idolatry, sexual immorality and grumbling? It seems like those three don't even really necessarily have a natural connection.
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And yet he he looks at these three things.
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And and I think that the reason why these particular sins are pointed out, even though there were more than this in the wilderness, why these three things are specifically pointed out is I think this is specifically what he's dealing with in the Corinthian church.
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In fact, Gordon Fee and his commentary on this actually makes that point.
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And he says that the the reason likely that Paul has chosen these is not just he went through a random selection of sins and said these are the three sins that we can deal with today kind of thing or or that this is a random listing of vices as we see some in some other places, not that they're necessarily random, but a list of vices like in First Corinthians one or or I mean, Romans one, First Corinthians six, another place we have lists of vice.
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These are not just lists of vices.
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These are three specific things that were happening in the life of Israel that are also happening in the life of Corinth.
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So he says, here are the examples.
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Here's the mirror for you.
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And I would say that these three sins also are still prominent in the church today.
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Idolatry plagues the modern church, especially the American church.
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Sexual immorality is an infestation.
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In the church, grumbling is a favorite pastime of many a church member.
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And you know, it's the biggest problem with these three things is they are, in a sense, respectable sins.
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That is to say, people perpetrate them and there's not much alarm when people do.
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Last night, I went to a debate with Dr.
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James White.
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Several of you went.
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We had a really great time of sitting and listening to the word of God.
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And the debate was on the subject of homosexuality and the people that were defending homosexuality as being obedient to God and being homosexual and that being proper.
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You could sort of tell in the room, for those who were Christians, it was a stomach turning situation.
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We're listening to this.
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We're saying this isn't right.
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This is certainly not true.
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The things that they're saying about this, this is just not right.
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And there was a sense in which there was just this there was a sense of that's just wrong.
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Comparing Naomi and Ruth to lesbianism, that's just wrong.
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And we and you could tell there was in the room just a sense of of in propriety because it's not a respectable sin, at least not yet.
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But a lot of churches, they harbor idolatry, never say a word.
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They harbor sexual immorality, and it's maybe under the radar a little.
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This one's living with that one or this one sleeping with that one.
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And nobody says anything.
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Or.
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Grumbling, as I said.
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It is the sin of sins and the modern evangelical church, and it's the respectable sins, which means nobody says anything.
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In fact, when it comes to grumbling people, well, I was just venting.
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I just had to get it out.
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We were just fellowshipping.
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So we're going to look at these three categories.
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We're going to look at how Paul addresses and we're going to look at the texts that he addresses.
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We're going to try to get through it today.
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If we don't, it's OK.
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We'll do it next week.
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But I don't want to just I don't want to divide this.
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If I can help it, because this is all driving to a single point.
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Let's look first at the sin of idolatry, he says in verse seven, do not be idolaters as some of them were as it is written.
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The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
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Now, where do we see that particular text? They sat down because that's a quote, right? He said, as it is written, they sat down to eat and drink, rose up to play.
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Where is that text in the Old Testament? Exodus 32.
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In fact, I want you to turn there, turn in your Bibles to Exodus 32.
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We're going to do a little Bible drills today, so don't let it don't let it make you afraid.
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It's OK to hear Bible pages turning.
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We ought to look at the text.
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You all probably are familiar with this with this narrative and Exodus 32, beginning in verse one, Moses has gone up on the mountain to receive the law of God.
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He's been gone for a time and the people begin to become impatient for his return.
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And so they go to Aaron.
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Verse one, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up, make us gods who shall go before us.
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As for this, Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
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So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me.
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So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.
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And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.
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And they said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
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That should turn your stomach more than anything I heard last night.
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You know what they just did? They made a calf out of gold and said, that's the God who parted the Red Sea, that's the God who sent the 10 plagues, that's the God who is the kind of glory cloud that leads us in the night and follows us in the day or leads us in the day and the night.
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This this is him.
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This is absolute atrocity, but it's a respectable sin.
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The whole crowd was fine with it.
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In fact, when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it and Aaron made proclamation tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.
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We're going to have a feast to the golden calf.
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Verse six.
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And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.
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And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
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There's the reference from First Corinthians chapter 10.
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That's the specific reference Paul has made.
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This is the scenario Paul is pointing to.
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And there's so many things here.
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I could just preach on 32.
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I could preach on Exodus 32.
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We could just talk about this, the impatience of the people, the unwillingness to trust God, haste in turning to other gods when God doesn't follow through as you think he should.
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Acquiescence of Aaron, the man of God who's supposed to stand for God, all of these things, replacing of God for an idol.
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There's there's a thousand sermons here, brother.
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We could preach all year on Exodus 32, one through six.
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But Paul only focuses on the last verse of this section that we just read, he only focuses on one little section.
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They they they ate and drank and rose up to play.
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And you say, well, what's that? The point that Paul is making is that in the midst of the idolatry, there is no scandal in the midst of idolatry.
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There's no hatred and calling for repentance.
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They're eating a feast in honor of the calf.
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They're drinking in honor of the calf.
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They're having revels, which is actually the term here.
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It's to play doesn't simply mean they went out and hung on the monkey bars.
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No revels.
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They reveled in the idolatry.
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In fact, many commentators said what likely was happening here is there was cultic dancing and possibly even sexual immorality, which was happening as a result of this paganism that had infected the people.
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There was revels that was happening.
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Here, in fact, the New Living Translation, which is not a it's not a super literal version, but it can be used for devotional reading and things like that, this is how the New Living Translation translates.
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Verse six says the people got up early in the morning to sacrifice, burn offerings and peace offerings.
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And after this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking and they indulged in pagan revelry.
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I believe that's a good commentary, as it were, on what is actually being said here.
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And Paul looks back at this act of unbridled idolatry and he says this is the example to avoid.
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These people had the very presence of God with them, guiding them, leading them, protecting them, providing for them.
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And yet they gave that over quickly for a statue they could hold and they gave it over to the degradation of revelry and idolatry.
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And some people you're hearing this sermon and I know it's easy to have other things on your mind.
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I know there's the world gets so caught up and our minds get so caught up in the world.
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And I know some of you may be thinking, you know what, this doesn't apply to us because nobody here is fashioning a golden calf.
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Nobody here has an idol sitting on their shelf at home that they go home and bow down to every day.
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Let me say this about that.
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When we conceive of God in a way that he is not or demand of him something that he would not or expect of him something that he will not, then we have created an idol in our mind.
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Idolatry is replacing the God who exists with a God of our own making.
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Hear that again.
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Idolatry is replacing the God who exists with a God of our own making and we can make idols in our mind.
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In fact, John Calvin said the human mind is a perpetual idol factory.
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We don't need a forge.
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We don't need silver and gold to forge into an idol.
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We have a brain that does it quite well.
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In fact, I want to quote Calvin on this.
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Listen to Calvin's words.
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He says, the human mind stuffed as it is with presumptuous rashness, dares to imagine a God suited to its own capacity as it labors under dullness, nay, is sunk in the grossest ignorance.
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It substitutes vanity and an empty phantom in the place of God to these evils.
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Another is added, the God whom man has thus conceived inwardly and attempts to embody outwardly.
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The mind in this way conceives the idol and the hand gives it birth.
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I would ask us today, church, where are our idols? What do you trust in more than God today? Your bank account, your job security, your elected officials.
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What do you love more than God today? Our hobbies are our freedom, our toys.
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Who do we try to impress more than God today? Your friends.
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Your enemies be surprised how much time we waste trying to impress people that are going to hate us anyway.
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I mean, we do.
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We spend a massive amount of time trying to impress people on Facebook that we would literally walk away from if we saw them on the street.
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Where is God on your priority list? Because wherever is above him, there are your idols.
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Don't think the sin of idolatry requires a golden calf.
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It doesn't.
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It was alive in the Corinthian church, and I believe it's alive in the church today.
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But he moves on.
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Verse eight, back in First Corinthians 10, he moves on to another sin, the sin of sexual immorality.
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Verse eight, he says, we do not and we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did.
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And twenty three thousand fell in a single day.
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Now, we have to understand this fits together.
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Because in many ways, Paul is still addressing idolatry when he addresses sexual immorality, because those two do work together, not only a sexual immorality, a way that idolatry is often practiced and things like pagan sacrifices and rituals and things like that, but also sex itself is an idol.
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And the lives of many people, sex itself is more important than God, it's more important than their family.
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Men have been willing to destroy family, friends, relationships, jobs, finances and everything on the altar of sexual satisfaction.
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Their God is their lust, their.
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The Bible says the God is their belly, that means their appetites.
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This is a particular issue in Corinth, as you remember, First Corinthians, chapter five, there was a man who had his father's wife and the church did nothing.
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In fact, as you remember, a few months ago when I preached that text, I said what likely had happened was that the church had not only accepted the sin within its midst, but had probably celebrated their own sense of inclusivity.
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Look how tolerant we are.
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We say nothing.
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Look how loving we are.
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We're not willing to judge even a man who is in an incestuous relationship with his own stepmother.
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We are to say nothing and demonstrate our own sense of virtue and our tolerance.
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So this is Paul mentions.
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He says, look, we can indulge in idolatry like they did that sin.
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We can indulge in sexual immorality.
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And then he mentions the twenty three thousand that fell in a single day.
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You want it.
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You want to know where that happened.
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Turn with me to numbers.
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Twenty five.
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When I entered seminary, the very first class I did was an exposition of the book of Numbers.
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So I have a certain personal love for this book and enjoyed the study that we did my very first class.
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And I remember these stories, these narratives, they call them stories that sounds like they're not true.
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They're narratives.
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They're actual events that happen in the life of Israel that happened.
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The book of Numbers is amazing.
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It's not just a census.
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It's all the things that happened in between the censuses that happens at the beginning and happened at the end.
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And that's where the word numbers comes from.
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And one of the situations was God or the people wanted to have a curse.
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So they called this guy named Balaam to come and curse the people of God.
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But God wouldn't let him curse the people.
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And even though he tried, he wasn't able.
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God wouldn't allow him to curse Israel.
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And so instead of cursing from the from the voice of this man, they subverted the people of God by intermingling them with pagan women.
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Can't curse them from above.
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We'll curse them from below.
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And we'll send in in the midst of this pagan sexual immorality.
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And this is where we get to twenty five, chapter twenty five, verse one.
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While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab.
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These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.
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So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
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And the Lord said to Moses, take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.
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And Moses said to the judges of Israel, each of you kill those of these men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor, literally hung the leaders who got him into this, hung him in the sunlight for everybody to see.
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That means hung dead, dead right there.
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That's what they were.
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Verse six, and behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman and in the sight of brought a Midianite woman to his family and in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation, the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting, when Phineas, the son of Eliezer, son of Aaron, the priest saw it, he rose up and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly.
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Thus, the plague of the people of Israel was stopped.
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Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty four thousand.
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Man goes out, gets a pagan woman, trances her out in front of the people of God and says we're going to go to my tent and have my way with her.
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One of the people of Israel who had his right mind, you may think he was out of his mind, but he had his right mind.
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He said, we're not going to allow this in the camp.
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He takes a spear, stabs them both in the midst of a sexual encounter.
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You tell me the Bible is boring, better anything you've ever read as far as drama and reality.
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The people had yoked themselves to a false god.
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The Bible says Baal of Peor and a man sought to incite controversy by by prancing out his idolatry and idolatrous sexual behavior before the people of God.
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It wasn't tolerated.
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And the Bible says.
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Twenty four thousand fell.
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And some of you with maybe good listening ears will notice that that's different than what Paul said.
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Paul said there was twenty three thousand that fell.
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And yet this text says there was twenty four.
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Some people say, well, he's talking about a different story.
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I don't believe so.
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I believe that there is a way to reconcile this.
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Some people think it's a textual variant.
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There's no indication of a textual variant here.
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But what's more likely some people say, well, Paul was just rounding down and the other text rounded up.
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That's possible because we have to think in the Bible.
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There are times around numbers are used.
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Twenty four thousand is around number twenty three thousand round number.
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Maybe one rounded up, maybe one rounded down.
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That's possible.
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But there's also the sense in which Paul does delineate.
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He says in one day, Paul says in one day, twenty three thousand fell.
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But that's not stated in in this text, the numbers.
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So what it could simply be is that there were twenty four thousand who died in total, but twenty three thousand fell in one day.
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That I mean, that's that's a way to understand it without there being a contradiction.
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Either way, that's twenty thousand people.
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The sin of sexual immorality was so heinous.
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You understand that's what? About eight, nine, eleven and one day.
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You don't think God takes this seriously? The immorality was on a grand scale and so was the judgment.
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Makes me fear for our land.
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Folks makes me feel fearful for, you know, because we have a we have a we have a country that murders thousands of babies every day.
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We have a country that celebrates sexual immorality and will not tolerate fidelity to truth.
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People say, God bless America, I've said it for years, God bless America with repentance, because that's the only thing that would bring his blessing.
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And it's got to be in the churches first.
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Paul is preaching.
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Paul isn't preaching to the pagan Romans.
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He's not preaching to the pagan Greeks.
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He's preaching to the church in Corinth.
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We must not have sexual immorality among us.
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Last is the sin of grumbling and complaining.
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And I would encourage please indulge in just a little longer because this this one here, if there if there was one that I could say we really need to hear, it's this one.
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Not that idolatry or sexual immorality is not important.
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But if there is a respectable sin in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ today, it is the sin of being a complainer.
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Verse nine says we must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents and not grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.
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As I said, I'm putting these together because if you look at the text that I believe these are referencing, I think that you see the grumbling is in the text.
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In fact, I'll just point you real quick.
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He mentions here some were destroyed by serpents.
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If you want to.
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I can't help.
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I have to show you this go because this is the worst story in the history of Israel as far as I'm concerned in the sense of judgment.
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I cannot imagine this.
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Turn with me to numbers 21.
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You were in 24 before.
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Just turn over a few chapters to numbers 21.
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This judgment is to me.
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I can't even I can't even fathom it.
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Some of you probably don't even remember this.
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Maybe you do, maybe you don't.
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But this this this scenario in numbers 21, beginning at verse four says from Mount Hor, they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom and the people became impatient on the way and the people spoke against Moses and against God or rather it says against God and against Moses.
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Let me stop there.
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This is why I think the complaining and the grumbling go together, because what brings the serpents is the testing of God in in the act of arguing against God and against God's appointed leader.
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So it's still a sense of grumbling here.
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That's that's in complaining.
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Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water.
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And we load this worthless food.
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They're talking about the manna, by the way, that God had given them literally from heaven.
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And they're arguing, we hate this food.
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We want what we had in Egypt.
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Verse six, then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people and many of the people of Israel died.
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Unimaginable that that's the choice God would make in my heart, unimaginable.
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I can't even think it's literally snakes, fiery snakes, which means poisonous in this regard.
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Verse seven, and the people came to Moses and said, we have said, you think we have sinned? For we have spoken against the Lord and against you.
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Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.
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And Moses prayed for the people.
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And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole.
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And everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live.
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So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole.
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And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
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I tell you, there's an entire sermon on how this points to Jesus Christ on the cross and looking to him and living that I have preached in the past.
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This Jesus said in John three, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
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So the serpent itself is a type of Christ in this picture.
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But the point Paul is making here is not so much the salvation, but the reason for the sin or the reason for the judgment, the reason for the judgment is the complaining and hating God and his appointed leader.
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And he says in the next section of first Corinthians 10, he says that some of them grumbled and they were destroyed by the destroyer.
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Now, that doesn't have a specific reference.
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Being destroyed by the destroyer doesn't have a specific reference.
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I can't point you to any place where that term is used.
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But I think that we could make the statement that it's all through the wilderness wanderings.
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There was grumbling, there was complaining, there was destruction.
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Then there was repentance.
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And then there was a time of healing.
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And then there was grumbling and complaining and destruction.
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And the destroyer would become and lives would be lost.
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And that's just sort of a vicious cycle that happened in the life of Israel.
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So so I don't know of any one particular place that that would point to.
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But I know it would point to several places where God brought death and destruction because of that sin.
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And as I said, beloved, of all of the, quote, unquote, respectable sins that are out there, of all the, quote, unquote, things we just don't talk about because it's just not that bad.
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This is the one people just think it's normal.
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Church folks talk about church folks, and that's just the way it is.
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Church folks complain about the pastor, and that's just the way it is.
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Church folks complain about the elders and the deacons, and that's just the way that it is.
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It's been said that heaven has to have a complaint department or at least a suggestion box, because it wouldn't be heaven for some folks if they didn't have a chance to complain about something.
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The old adage used to be, if you didn't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.
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Now, the adage is, if you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me.
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Grumbling is not a joke.
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You know what grumbling is? It is a verbal expression of your dissatisfaction with the sovereign decisions of almighty God.
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I'll say it again.
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It is a verbal expression of your dissatisfaction with the sovereign decisions of almighty God.
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People say I'm not people say I've never said I'm not satisfied with God.
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I'm dissatisfied with situation X or person X or event X or place X.
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But is God not sovereign over your situation? Is God not sovereign over the people that he brings into your life or takes out of your life? Is God not sovereign over exactly where you are? You say, I don't like it.
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Do we know better than God? And here's the real danger, folks, and you may not believe this, but I've seen it and I know it's true.
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Murmuring and complaining are contagious.
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It's harmful for the believers and it infects the body.
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And many churches split and die over the ruinous behaviors of its members.
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And you may not realize this, but it hurts your kids, too.
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Brian Borgman, a pastor I love and listen to quite a bit, said this.
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He was actually quoting one of his professors and one of his professor was asked, why do you think kids leave the church? When they become adults and the professor said this, he said, what these kids see and hear at Sunday lunch, mom and dad go home griping about the church, about the people, about the preacher, about everything wrong with the church.
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Instead of talking about things that extol and magnify the albeit imperfect church.
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All the kids here are complaints and eventually they come to the conclusion that this is what church is really like.
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I don't want to be a part of it.
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If mom and dad can't stand these people, why should I even try? You know, the absence of grumbling and complaining is wholesome speech.
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And it's a sign of holiness.
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Turn to Philippians chapter two, Philippians chapter two, verses 14 and 15.
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The SV says, do all things without grumbling or questioning.
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It's actually would be better translated grumbling or disputing, arguing that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ, I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
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Paul says this, he says, do all things without grumbling or complaining, grumbling or disputing that you may be children of light shining in the world.
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Honestly, the difference between the grumbler and the complainer is one who is speaking words of wholesome speech, and it's a sign of holiness.
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Sinclair Ferguson said this, he said, a grumbling or questioning spirit is an expression of ingratitude of God's providence and of lovelessness and pride towards another.
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It's a denial of grace.
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It's a working against salvation rather than working salvation in every aspect of our lives.
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In the face of the self humbling of Jesus and the servant spirit, which was his murmuring and arguing are ugly monsters.
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I know some of you maybe knew folks, maybe folks who haven't been here, maybe say, wow, is there something going on? The pastor is really hitting on this one.
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Not really.
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It's just life and church isn't supposed to be like the world.
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You open up Facebook, that's all you see.
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I don't care how good something is.
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Somebody put up a picture of a new puppy.
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You know, thousands of those are killed every day.
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You know, it doesn't matter.
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No matter what you do, the world's going to complain.
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The world's going to grumble.
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The world is going to nitpick.
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The world's going to question.
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The world's going to dispute.
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It doesn't matter.
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Do we have words of holiness, words of wholesomeness? Or are we the person who, when somebody wants to complain, they know they can come and talk to us because they know we're going to agree and they know we're going to further it.
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They know they're going to spread it.
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I tell you this.
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I used to tell this to people.
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This is a practical application for just a second.
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I used to say, you know what? The easiest way to stop gossip is is when somebody tells you something ugly about someone else.
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You tell them something nice about that person.
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Did you see the dress she was wearing today? Not you, of course, but I was talking to you.
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I go to you, Miss Sherry, and I say, you see the dress she was wearing today? And Miss Sherry says, you know, I like that dress.
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The conversation's over.
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But if I say, you see that dress? I didn't.
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Didn't she look awful? See how that perpetuates.
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And I know that's a small thing, but it that's how it starts.
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Right.
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Is that how do we respond to the grumbling and to the complaining? Verse 11, and we're going to end here in chapter 10, first Corinthians, verse 11.
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He says, now these things happen to them as an example, but they were written down for our new Thessalonian in the Greek, our admonition.
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ESV says instruction.
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But really, it's it's it's a challenge.
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It's it's it's it's new that it's it's it's challenging and admonishing of behavior.
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These things are meant to push us away from them.
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These are examples to push us away from these things.
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I tell you, I thought about this this week as I was writing my message.
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I thought about something my dad used to say.
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And while not a theologian, he has some wisdom at times in my life that is really stuck with me.
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And something he told me when I was a teenager was this.
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He said most people have to make their own mistakes before they'll learn, but a smart man learns from the mistakes of others is that most people have to make their own mistakes before they learn.
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He said, Keith, if you're smart, you'll learn from the mistakes of others.
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And that's what Paul's doing.
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He said, look, they are examples.
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They are deadly examples.
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Be not like them.
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If you are flirting with idolatry, turn from your idols and turn to Christ.
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If you are engaging in sexual immorality, even if no one knows but you repent of that depravity and look to Christ.
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If you are in a constant state of complaint and grumbling against Almighty God, find contentment in his sovereign plan and rest in the contentment which comes from knowing that no matter your circumstances, you are Christ and Christ is yours.
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He is Lord.
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He is sovereign.
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He is worthy.
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And he calls us to repent when we wander off into those things which are displeasing to him.
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May we repent of those things and give all the glory to him.
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Father, I thank you for an opportunity to look back at the history of your people, Israel, and know that they were a lesson to us in so many areas, particularly in the areas of sexual immorality, idolatry and grumbling and complaining.
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God, may we repent of those things which are not pleasing to you.
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And may we seek your face daily, knowing that you, O God, are worthy not only to be praised, but to be sought, to be pursued, to be lived for and even to die for in Christ's name.
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Amen.