Corpses in the Wilderness

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

1 view

0 comments

00:01
I want to invite you to remain standing and open up your Bibles with me, and we're going this morning to be in the 10th chapter of 1 Corinthians.
00:11
So if you'll turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, and we're going to be looking at verses 1 to 13.
00:32
The title of today's message is Corpses in the Wilderness, and we begin in verse 1.
00:40
For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
00:54
And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.
00:59
For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
01:07
Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
01:17
Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.
01:24
Do not be idolaters, as some of them were.
01:28
As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
01:32
We must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some of them did, as 23,000 fell in a single day.
01:40
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.
01:51
Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
02:01
Therefore let anyone who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall.
02:08
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
02:13
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
02:18
But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
02:32
Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
02:34
I pray now that as we seek to give an understanding of it, I pray, oh God, that you would first and foremost keep me from error.
02:43
Lord, as you know, I am a fallible man.
02:46
I am capable of error, and I want to be protected from it for the sake of my conscience and for the sake of your people.
02:54
I pray, oh God, that as the word is preached today, that it will be mixed with faith.
03:00
And Lord God, that it would be used to draw believers closer to Christ.
03:05
And Lord, that it would be used to convict those who know not Christ of their need for a Savior, and that they would see Christ as beautiful and lovely and glorious, the only Savior given to man.
03:20
We pray all this in his name.
03:23
Amen.
03:44
I'm glad to be back in the pulpit this morning.
03:49
It is certainly something that I miss.
03:51
I miss you all when I am away, but I also miss the preaching of the gospel.
03:59
While we were in the mountains, we did various activities.
04:04
And one of the things that we did, we went to eat at a place called the Dillard House.
04:07
It was a nice restaurant recommended by Mr.
04:10
Turner, and it was very nice.
04:12
Well, as we left the Dillard House, we were driving out, and it was on Monday, and we found this nice, big piece of land with all these different amenities, horse stables and all kinds of things.
04:23
And as we were driving out, there was a sign that said, 12 Spies Vineyard, 12 Spies Vineyard.
04:34
And it was interesting because I knew immediately what the name and title referred to, but I took it as an opportunity to quiz my children as to their Old Testament knowledge.
04:45
Would my kids get the reference? And I asked them, I said, kids, do you see the name of the vineyard, 12 Spies Vineyard? And they said, yeah.
04:56
And I said, well, do you know what that is referring to? And after a few helpful hints from dad, they kind of arrived at something in the Bible that was in the Old Testament.
05:11
And I said, well, the reference of 12 Spies Vineyard is actually a reference to the 12 men that were sent by Moses into the Promised Land to spy out the land before the people of Israel would go and conquest the land.
05:29
While they were there, they discovered grapes and vineyards that were so fantastic and so large that they had to take some back with them just to show them the majesty and the power and the great bounty that was in the Promised Land.
05:45
It took two men and a pole to bring back the cluster of grapes that was brought back from the Promised Land.
05:52
And they had figs and other fruits and things that they brought back with them to show them that this land really is the land of promise.
06:02
This really is, as it were, the land flowing with milk and honey.
06:09
And yet the 12 men, when they returned, did not bring a positive report.
06:16
Even though they came back and said, look at all these great things that the Promised Land has to offer.
06:22
When they came back, only two of them believed that they could actually accomplish the conquest of the land.
06:32
Caleb and Joshua believed that it was time and Israel could do it and they could go and they could make the conquest of the land.
06:40
But the other 10 said no.
06:42
They said the people there are like giants and we are like grasshoppers in their sight.
06:49
That's the comparison they made.
06:50
They said they're like giants and we're like grasshoppers.
06:53
There's no way we could ever make it.
06:56
There's no way we could ever defeat them.
06:58
There's no way we could ever conquest the land.
07:03
And that negative report that they brought back spread among the people and the entire nation began to doubt the ability to be victorious in the land.
07:19
And that lack of faith, according to the Old Testament scriptures, that lack of faith is actually what led to the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
07:34
You realize it's only about 11 day journey that they were on.
07:39
If they were simply taking a foot journey from one place to the next, it would have only taken about 11 days, maybe two weeks with a good sized group of people that they had well into the millions.
07:51
We know they had 603,550 fighting men.
07:56
That means men over 20 and not too old to fight.
07:59
So you've got those men of fighting age or well over 600,000 and certainly there would have been women that would have been counterparts to them and children that would have been of those men and women and there would have been older folks together.
08:11
So there's well over a million people in this wilderness, maybe over two million.
08:17
But still it would have been possible for them to make that journey in just a few weeks.
08:21
And yet it took them 40 years of wandering.
08:27
Why? Well, because of this very thing right here.
08:33
God said, go and spy out the land, send the men in to spy out the land.
08:37
The 12 men go in, 12 come back, 10 of them say, we can't do it.
08:41
And everyone believes them.
08:47
Numbers 32, it says this in verse 10, it said, the Lord's anger was kindled on that day.
08:55
And he swore, saying, surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt from 20 years old and upward shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me.
09:12
None except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Chesonite, and Joshua, the son of none, for they have wholly followed the Lord.
09:21
And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness 40 years until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone.
09:35
Now I want to ask a question.
09:36
You don't have to raise your hand, you can answer it in your heart.
09:39
I'm not looking to call anyone out this morning.
09:41
How many of you, and again, don't raise your hands, but how many of you know before you came in here this morning, you were intimately familiar with that story? That was a story that you've known, you're intimately familiar with it, it's a common place to you.
09:56
The reason why I ask is because in our text today, in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul is going to assume that we know that story.
10:05
Paul is going to assume that we have enough understanding of Israel's history that he can use an example from Israel's history simply by recalling it to memory, not explaining it, not pointing out where it is in the Old Testament text, not calling a verse to Scripture to mind, but simply saying that this happened and everybody's going to understand.
10:28
Keep in mind the Corinthian church was not all Jews.
10:31
In fact, it was primarily Gentiles.
10:33
Why would Paul have such confidence that this group of people would know these stories? Well, I believe it's because when Paul first planted the church in Corinth, the Bible says he spent 18 months there as the minister of the church in Corinth, and I believe he taught them this.
10:52
I believe this is something that they would have known because he was their teacher.
10:57
Part of the responsibility of the pastor, by the way, is to actually teach the Bible.
11:01
We don't just read verses and use it as a devotional tool, or use it as a way to kind of inspire you to be a better you.
11:09
No, we teach the Bible, and we understand what the Bible says.
11:14
And Paul had taught them the Bible, and what's interesting about this text, he calls the ancestors our fathers.
11:22
He says, I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were under the cloud and passed through the sea.
11:29
Why can he do that? Well, he does that because when he's talking to the church, even though many of them were Gentiles and were not physical descendants of Israel, they were by spirit children of Abraham.
11:43
The Bible says that we have become children of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ.
11:50
And so when I talk about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and I talk about Moses, those are our spiritual forefathers.
11:59
I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God.
12:02
Don't we sing that song? Well, the family of God goes back prior to Christ, into the old covenant, into the people of Israel, back to Abraham, back to Noah, back even to Adam, our first father who plunged us into sin.
12:23
This is a reminder to us that we cannot divorce our study of the New Testament from the Old Testament.
12:32
We cannot divorce our understanding of the Bible to only starting at Matthew and divorcing it from everything else.
12:39
In fact, there was a very famous pastor.
12:42
He's probably got one of the largest churches in the United States.
12:45
And recently, he came out very boldly and he said, if we really want to accomplish what God wants to accomplish in this world, we need to unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament.
12:55
That was his admonition to his congregation of thousands and his worldwide audience, probably in the hundreds of thousands, that what we need to do is unhitch ourselves from the bounds of the Old Testament text.
13:13
The problem is the New Testament is rooted in the Old Testament.
13:17
You try to understand the New Testament without the Old Testament, you're going to come into a lot of error and that's what a lot of people do.
13:24
A lot of error in the church is found today in people who are essentially Marcionites.
13:30
You know who Marcion was? Marcion was a heretic in the early church.
13:35
And Marcion's idea was what we need to do with the Bible is we need to cut out the whole Old Testament, cut out every New Testament reference to the Old Testament, and you're basically left with only a few verses about how much Jesus loves me.
13:51
Because he didn't believe in wrath either, so he cut out all that part too.
13:55
And you know who talked about wrath more than anybody? Jesus.
14:00
The Marcion Bible ended up being not much more than a pamphlet.
14:07
And the Marcionites fell into history as one of the cult groups of the early church, but they're still around today.
14:17
They just don't go by that name.
14:18
I did a sermon a few years ago called The Marcions Are Coming.
14:21
I like the Marcion.
14:22
The Marcions Are Coming.
14:22
Because they're still here.
14:24
The Marcions Are Coming.
14:26
They're coming to say that part of the Bible doesn't matter, that part of the Bible doesn't need to be studied, that part of the Bible simply needs to be put away to history.
14:37
Paul doesn't look at it that way.
14:38
Paul assumes that we are going to have a certain knowledge of the Old Testament so that we understand what the New Testament means.
14:43
How would we understand things like priesthood, sacrifice, atonement, penal substitution, and all the other things if we didn't have an Old Testament to look to? Jesus Christ is called our High Priest.
14:53
What does that even mean? You know, when Jesus Christ died on the cross, it says the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom.
15:02
That veil was several hundred pounds of material woven together to a point that it was as thick as a man's hand.
15:08
Not this way, but this way.
15:10
It was that thick material.
15:11
It was hung top to bottom inside, and it separated the holy place from the most holy place.
15:16
And the Bible said when Jesus died on the cross, the veil of that temple was torn in two from top to bottom, showing, one, that it was God who did it top to bottom, and no human hand could have done it.
15:26
Why did it even matter, though? What does the temple represent? What is the holy place separated from the most holy place by this veil? And what did that veil represent? And what was it that happened on the cross that caused God's Spirit to be unleashed and allowed to go to all people, not just the people of Israel, but all men of all tribes, tongues, and nations? See, the Old Testament's not just a collection of stories.
15:54
It's where we find our theology.
15:55
You remember when Paul said that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for rebrook, for reproof, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be equipped, thoroughly equipped, for every good work? You remember that? 2 Timothy 3, verse 16? That passage, when Paul said, Pass Hagraphe, all the Scripture, that Scripture was the Old Testament.
16:24
The direct context of that passage is the Old Testament, because Paul is writing the New Testament about the Old Testament.
16:38
So Paul assumes that we understand the Old Testament.
16:41
Paul assumes we have this knowledge.
16:44
And as I said, I think we have to have this knowledge before we go on to our text for today.
16:49
Now, let's get back to 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 1.
16:53
We're going to break this down into three parts.
16:55
Now, I put the notes in this week.
16:58
I don't normally do that, but I'm going to have it in the overhead if you want to take notes this morning.
17:02
Just to give you a quick reminder of what we did, because it's been a couple weeks since we've been in 1 Corinthians.
17:06
The last thing we looked at was chapter 9.
17:08
We go verse by verse here.
17:09
The last thing we looked at was chapter 9, verses 24 to 27.
17:12
And in verse 27, Paul says this, I discipline my body, I keep it under subjection, lest after preaching to others, I myself would be a castaway.
17:20
Paul's saying that there is the real reality of apostasy.
17:24
That doesn't mean somebody would lose their salvation, but there is a real reality that someone could go through the movements of being a believer, go through the steps of being a believer, and not be a real believer.
17:37
You understand, Jesus said there will be some people who come to him on that day and say, Lord, Lord, have we not done this? Have we not done that? Have we not done the other? And Jesus said, I will look at them and say, I never knew you.
17:48
Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
17:50
There is a reality of people who make a profession of faith, but don't have a possession of Jesus.
17:55
We know that.
17:57
That's not even something that we should argue.
17:59
And Paul makes that point.
18:01
He said we run the race, we fight the fight, we persevere in our faith, but we don't do so on our own.
18:08
We do so because the Bible says God is working in us to do those things.
18:12
The Bible says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who is working within you, both to will and to do his good pleasure.
18:21
So that's where Paul's at.
18:22
He's at this point where he's saying, yes, there are some people who start the race and don't finish it.
18:28
There are some people who come to church, they make a confession, they even get baptized, they take communion, they may even pay a tithe here and now and again.
18:37
But they don't know Jesus.
18:40
And ultimately they're disqualified.
18:44
So what's the example he's going to use? He's going to use Israel.
18:48
He's going to use Israel because they followed after Moses.
18:52
They went through that Red Sea.
18:54
They went into the wilderness, but they were not people of faith.
18:56
And the vast majority of them died in the wilderness.
19:02
This is the example that he's going to give us.
19:04
We'll look here at verse 1.
19:06
We see the blessings enjoyed within the covenant community.
19:09
This is the first point.
19:11
Verse 1, he says, For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink.
19:26
For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
19:31
We'll stop right there.
19:33
The important thing in these first four verses to notice is the use of the word all.
19:38
All were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized unto Moses, all ate, all drank.
19:48
The point is this.
19:49
There is a blessing that is shared by everyone because of their inherent participation within a covenant community, even if they're not faithful.
20:05
There were people in Israel in the wilderness who weren't faithful, but yet they were still blessed by God because they were part of that community.
20:14
They experienced blessings in two ways, divine protection, divine direction.
20:19
God gave them protection in the wilderness, and He gave them direction in the wilderness.
20:25
He was giving them blessings because they were part of the community.
20:29
And this is really important for people who are part of a local church, because if you are part of a local church, you are the recipient of blessings from God whether you're saved or not.
20:39
You say, I don't understand what you're saying.
20:41
You can come to church and you hear the word of God.
20:43
That's a blessing to you whether you're a believer or not.
20:47
You come to a church and you're experiencing the camaraderie, a fellowship in the word of God.
20:52
That's a blessing whether you're a believer or not.
20:55
Now we're going to talk a little while while.
20:59
It's not going to save you, but it's still a blessing.
21:01
That's the point I'm trying to get across, because this is especially important for young people.
21:08
Children, listen to me.
21:10
Just because you are born into a family which is part of a covenant community does not mean that you are saved.
21:18
This is hugely important, because you are blessed for having Christian parents.
21:26
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7.14, even if you only have one Christian parent, you are sanctified by that parent.
21:34
And if you're a spouse of a person who's a believer, and they drag you to church every Sunday because you're not a believer, but you come to make them happy, you're blessed by them, because the Bible says that unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the believing spouse.
21:48
You are receiving a blessing from God simply by being married to somebody who loves Jesus.
21:57
But that blessing doesn't save you.
22:04
When you are facing Jesus at judgment, Jesus is not going to look.
22:07
Hey, was your daddy saved? Was your mama saved? Well, good, you're in.
22:12
That ain't how it works.
22:15
As a child of a Christian family, you have divine protection.
22:18
You have the divine direction.
22:20
But you do not have divine regeneration just because you're born into a Christian family.
22:28
That's very important, because your relationship with God is not communal.
22:35
Now, the blessings of God are communal.
22:38
The blessings of God are given to the church.
22:40
The ministry is given to the church.
22:42
Everybody has different gifts, and those gifts are shared within the church.
22:45
And that is communal.
22:46
We have communal blessings here, but not communal salvation.
22:50
You don't get saved just because you sign up to be a member of Sovereign Grace Family Church.
22:54
Now, we try to make sure you're saved before you become a member.
22:57
I mean, we try.
22:59
We try to make sure you're saved before we let you get baptized, or before we give you the sign of baptism.
23:03
But those things, we don't know your heart.
23:09
And you know what Hebrews tells us? Hebrews says there are people who come in, and they taste of the heavenly gift, and they're made partakers of the Spirit, meaning they're part of the church, and yet they are not saved.
23:21
Have we not seen that? Have we not experienced that? And is it not a shame to spend your whole life faking it? Now, before I get to verse 5, I want to mention two things about verses 1 to 4 that I'm not going to really be able to get.
23:45
I want to look at verses 1 to 13, because it holds a unit of thought.
23:49
But in the weeks to come, I'm going to go back and break...
23:52
I'll try that again.
23:53
I'm going to go back and break a few things down.
23:55
And you guys know I do this normally.
23:56
I'll do a big long section, and then go back and hit some points.
24:00
One of the points I want to point out here is when he says, "...baptized into Moses." That's a big question for people.
24:04
What is he even talking about? Because it says right here, it says that, "...I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and passed to the sea, and they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea." That phrase is rife with misunderstandings.
24:21
And man, there are churches that will go to the mat over the subject of baptism, and the questions of baptism, and what baptism means, and what it represents, and all of these different things.
24:29
In this particular context, though, they are not saying that Moses was out there as they were walking through the Red Sea, baptizing people as they walked through.
24:40
The reference to baptism here is a reference to identification.
24:44
When you are baptized into Christ, you are identifying yourself with Christ.
24:49
That's why we baptize by being immersed underwater.
24:52
It's a symbol of going under, being buried with Him and baptized, and raised to new life.
24:58
That's the picture that baptism is supposed to represent.
25:03
Galatians 3.27, "...As many as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Romans 6.3, "...Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into His death?" It's an identification.
25:21
When these people followed after Moses through that Red Sea, following that Shekinah cloud that was in the sky, when they followed after Moses, they were identifying with Him as God's appointed leader.
25:38
That's what that means.
25:40
I just don't want it to confuse you on the subject of baptism, because I know how easy...
25:45
In fact, here's a good...
25:48
I'll quote Calvin.
25:49
Now, Calvin and I had differences on baptism.
25:52
Calvin believed in baptism for the family, for infants.
25:56
But even though we disagree on that, Calvin said this about this verse.
26:01
He said, "...They were therefore baptized into Moses, that is, under his guidance or ministry, as has already been stated." You see, that's Calvin's point.
26:10
This is not talking about physical baptism.
26:12
This is talking about identification with a leader.
26:17
But I do think it ties to physical baptism in this way.
26:22
As much as those people were identified with Moses and then rebelled in the wilderness, so too do people get baptized in the water of the baptistry and then rebel against Christ.
26:34
Because the baptism doesn't mean anything if we don't have a heart change.
26:39
You understand you can get wet and not get saved.
26:44
How many thousands, millions even, have received the sign of baptism and yet never experienced true and genuine regeneration of the soul? The second one I want to point to is the phrase, "...the rock was Christ." Baptized into Moses is the first one, but the rock was Christ.
27:13
I'm going to just put...
27:13
I want you to...
27:14
If you write in your Bible, you put a star there or whatever.
27:17
I can't talk about that today.
27:19
Because that's a whole other subject.
27:23
Because that deals with the subject of topology or seeing Christ prefigured in the Old Testament.
27:29
And I'm probably in the weeks to come going to do a message on seeing Christ in the Old Testament from this text.
27:36
So just put a pin in it.
27:39
Pretend I didn't even mention it.
27:41
Because I can't do it today.
27:42
Alright, so we see this first verses 1-4 show us the blessing which are enjoyed in the covenant community.
27:53
Now let's look at verses 5-12.
27:55
This we see the failure experienced within the covenant community.
27:59
It says in verse 5, "...Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness." Now I'm not going to read all the way to verse 12 because he basically just explains how they were overthrown.
28:12
But pointing out verse 5, comparing that to verses 1-4.
28:15
In verses 1-4 he said this.
28:17
He used the word all.
28:18
He said all were baptized.
28:21
All received the blessings.
28:22
All ate.
28:23
All drank.
28:24
But most of them, verse 5 what? Did not please God.
28:30
And I think the word most there is a little bit of an understatement.
28:34
Because how many people out of those millions please God? Two.
28:45
Joshua and Caleb were the only two, 20 years old and older, that made it into the promised land.
28:51
Did you know Moses didn't even make it into the promised land? He got to see it but he didn't get to go into it.
29:04
So we have all.
29:05
All received this blessing.
29:07
All received this and that and the other.
29:09
But with most God was not pleased.
29:14
That word should cut like a knife.
29:19
Commentator Godet said this.
29:21
He said what a spectacle is that which is called up by the Apostle before the eyes of the self-satisfied Corinthians.
29:28
All those bodies sated with miraculous food and drink.
29:31
They had been fed from heaven with manna.
29:35
And they had drank from the water of the rock which represented Jesus Christ, the living water.
29:41
They'd been fed from heaven.
29:44
Their thirst had been quenched from the rock.
29:46
They were full and satisfied and dead.
29:51
You realize they had been having funerals every day for 40 years.
29:59
Millions of people died in the wilderness.
30:08
It can't help but make us have to ponder the world we live in.
30:11
How many people live in the lap of luxury? They count themselves blessed.
30:16
Hashtag blessed, right? Everything, I'm blessed.
30:22
And yet their end will be destruction.
30:26
What good is it to gain the whole world and lose yourself? And what's more is they're not all in the world.
30:39
They're in the church too.
30:41
There are churches today that are filled with lost folks.
30:45
And I'm not here just to beat up on churches that ain't ours because our church ain't perfect either.
30:50
Some of y'all are lost.
30:53
But the reality is there's churches that just make their foundation on lost folks.
30:58
That's how they found it.
30:58
That's how they're going.
31:00
Y'all know who John Piper is? John Piper, great minister of the gospel.
31:05
Had a chance to read one of his books while I was out.
31:08
Just wonderful writer.
31:13
He visited a church that he knew was a, quote-unquote, progressive church.
31:18
You know, he knew it was not going to be one that was normal for him.
31:23
But he wanted to see what was happening.
31:25
And, you know, I don't know if he went in sunglasses or a hat or something so people wouldn't know who he is because he's pretty well known.
31:30
But he went in to sort of see what happened.
31:32
He said he took away several thoughts.
31:35
And there's actually an entire podcast where he talks about it.
31:37
I want to share with you some of the things that were happening in the church that he visited.
31:43
First, he said they sang a hymn.
31:44
The first hymn they sang was entitled, Source and Sovereign, Rock and Cloud.
31:48
Now, that sounds like it would go with our sermon today.
31:52
But this was the chorus of the song.
31:54
Listen close.
31:55
May the church at prayer recall that no single holy name, but the truth behind them all, is the God whom we proclaim.
32:06
Now, hear it again.
32:07
May the church at prayer recall that no single holy name, but the truth behind them all, is the God that we proclaim.
32:17
It's basically saying there is no one God.
32:20
We're just all worshiping the same God by a different name.
32:24
That's the song! Haven't you heard me say before that what we sing matters? Theology matters and our songs should match our theology? Well, it matches their theology.
32:37
Another point in the message, he said there was a pastoral prayer.
32:43
This was part of the pastoral prayer.
32:44
It says, quote, We bless you, O God, for the beautiful diversity of the gender spectrum.
32:49
That was in the pastoral prayer.
32:50
There wasn't a sermon either.
32:56
Instead, the leader of the church, I don't know whether they called a pastor or what, but the leader of the church came and stood on this side of the pulpit, and they had a Muslim imam come and stand on this side of the pulpit, and there was a microphone, and they had a conversation.
33:10
Not about their differences.
33:12
Not about the difference between the word of God and the Koran.
33:15
But they just had a conversation.
33:20
That was the message.
33:24
Interfaith dialogue, as it were.
33:28
Now, it's easy to point that out and say, Boy, that's just wrong.
33:35
But what about us? I mean, that's not an exaggeration.
33:39
Those things happened.
33:41
But that is a little bit of a hyperbole when we think about our context.
33:44
If I come up here and have a conversation with an imam, and I'm not telling him about Jesus, y'all feel free to fire me.
33:51
I'm serious.
33:52
If I lose my mind, you get a better one.
33:55
But we do have to ask the question, Where is our idolatry? Paul mentions three sins of Israel, and we're going to talk about these in the week to come.
34:07
He mentions three specific things.
34:08
Idolatry, sexual immorality, and ingratitude and grumbling.
34:14
And I got to tell you, you don't know where your idols are until somebody points them out to you, and then you get mad.
34:22
Sexual immorality is not just cheating on your wife with a physical person.
34:25
It can be done digitally, and often is.
34:28
And ingratitude and grumbling is the sacred sin of the Southern Church.
34:36
I've heard one time, If heaven doesn't have a suggestion box, I don't want to go.
34:44
The sins of Israel can easily be applied to us, and we need to consider that so we know where our repentance needs to come.
34:59
Paul says these are given as examples for our instruction.
35:05
And he says in verse 12, Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
35:14
What's the fall? In context, dead in the wilderness.
35:20
In a further context, it's apostasy.
35:23
The context of this whole thing is somebody who starts and doesn't finish.
35:30
Jesus said, A sower went out to sow his seed.
35:34
Some of the seed fell along the path.
35:36
The birds of the air came and ate it up.
35:38
Some of the seed fell among rocky soil and it sprung up for a time, but it died because it had no root.
35:47
Beloved, that's the picture Paul is giving us.
35:53
Thirdly and finally, I do want to give my last point and draw to a close.
35:57
Because we see the blessings enjoyed within the covenant community is for everybody, but the failure experience within the covenant community was also great and widespread.
36:07
So finally we see the promise, and this is verse 13.
36:10
Paul doesn't leave us there.
36:12
He doesn't leave us down, but he leaves us with a promise.
36:15
And the promise is in verse 13.
36:18
And this is for those who are in genuine covenant with God.
36:21
Not just in covenant with the church, but you're in covenant with God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
36:27
This is a promise for you.
36:29
And it's in verse 13.
36:30
He says, No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
36:36
God is faithful.
36:40
He will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able.
36:43
But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
36:50
Now I want to say something.
36:51
And again, I hate that time, I feel like, is always in a constraint.
36:56
Even if I preach for an hour and a half, it wouldn't be enough.
36:59
It'd be enough for y'all maybe, but it wouldn't be enough for me.
37:02
But the reality is, this passage has been so misused.
37:06
By itself, ripped from its context and used for everything in the world.
37:10
The worst I've ever heard.
37:13
A man told me one time, God won't ever give me more than I can handle, so I don't have to worry about, and he listed a few things.
37:19
He said, because God knows I can't handle that.
37:23
If I told you what he said, you'd be upset, but I don't want to mention it because it was so ridiculous.
37:28
But he said, I don't have to worry about this, I don't have to worry about that, because God knows I can't handle that.
37:32
So he wouldn't put it in my way.
37:36
I tell you, if that ain't the worst hermeneutics, worst interpretation, it ain't even what it says.
37:43
This passage doesn't say God wouldn't do that to me.
37:47
God won't let me endure that or deal with that.
37:49
That ain't what it says.
37:50
This is a promise within a context.
37:53
Paul is talking about the wilderness Israelites who fell into temptation.
37:57
And many of them fell dead.
38:01
And he gives us this promise.
38:05
You will not have a life that's devoid of temptation.
38:09
Even when you're a believer, you will face temptation because that's common to everybody.
38:13
And guess what, when you got redeemed, you still have flesh that you have to deal with.
38:17
And the Bible tells us about that flesh.
38:19
In Galatians it says there's a spirit and the flesh and they're always at war with one another.
38:24
And so we have this temptation that's common to man.
38:28
That means it's everybody's dealing with it.
38:30
But the difference for the believer is this.
38:39
God is faithful.
38:42
So that with every temptation you face, God will give you the ability to endure it.
38:58
I say that's a promise, but it's also a shame because that means this.
39:03
Every sin we engage in, we didn't have to.
39:12
God has made a providential way for you out of that sin.
39:18
And yet we still choose at times to sin.
39:30
In my Bible, I look at that word God is faithful, that phrase.
39:35
And I think, thank God he's faithful because I know I'm not.
39:42
And I know that he's the one that I look to when my faith fails.
39:51
Charles Spurgeon has a great quote.
39:56
He says, I sure am glad God chose me before I was born.
40:00
Because he sure wouldn't have chose me after.
40:08
Matthew Henry about this passage says this.
40:12
He says, nothing in scripture is written in vain.
40:16
And it is our wisdom and duty to learn from it.
40:19
Others have fallen and so may we.
40:23
The Christian security against sin is distrust in himself.
40:31
God has promised to keep us from falling if we do not look to ourselves.
40:39
That's the answer.
40:41
The whole answer.
40:42
Pistis Deha Theos.
40:44
God is faithful.
40:47
See that was what the Israelites missed in the wilderness.
40:50
When they looked and they saw the promised land, how great it was.
40:54
All they could see was the giants.
40:58
They couldn't see God for the giants.
41:06
They didn't have faith and faithfulness in God.
41:09
We can't go forward to the promised land.
41:11
We'll be defeated.
41:11
We need to go back to Egypt because they had onions and leeks and all kinds of other good food that we can eat.
41:16
We can't go forward.
41:17
We must go back.
41:18
We can't listen to Moses even though God appointed him.
41:21
And even though we've seen the waters part.
41:24
And even though we've seen bread from heaven.
41:26
And even though we've seen all these things.
41:28
We can't go forward and on and on and on.
41:31
Their faithlessness went and they perished.
41:36
And the same is true today.
41:40
I'm going to say this.
41:41
If you're here today, you either trust in the faithfulness of God or you do not.
41:46
Your trust isn't perfect, I know.
41:50
But you either trust in it or you don't.
41:54
You either believe He saved you from your sins or you don't.
41:56
You either trust in the finished work of Christ or you don't.
42:03
If you trust in the finished work of Christ, you know He has changed your life.
42:08
You've stopped trusting in yourself.
42:09
You've stopped believing in your own goodness to save you.
42:12
You've stopped counting your own righteousness as being good enough to face God.
42:16
This is how I always know if I'm talking to an unsaved person.
42:18
I say, if you face God today and He said, why should He let you into heaven? What would you say? And their answer is, because I'm a good person, I know they ain't saved.
42:26
Because a saved person don't say that.
42:29
A saved person knows he's not a good person.
42:31
He knows there's none good, not even one.
42:33
And the only thing we can do at the throne of God is plead the blood of Christ.
42:42
And trust in it.
42:48
Beloved, if you're a believer, I want to remind you what Paul is saying here.
42:52
You not only have a God who is faithful to you at the end of your life, you have a God who is faithful to you right now.
42:59
And every temptation you face, God is faithful to be there with you.
43:04
So I encourage you, I implore you, I call on you.
43:07
When that opportunity for idolatry comes, call upon God and He will make that way of escape.
43:15
When the opportunity for sexual immorality in your mind or in your heart or even physically comes, call upon God and flee that immorality.
43:24
When that opportunity to grumble comes, and to be dissatisfied with all God's given you, and that opportunity to gossip comes because somebody's hurt you, or somebody's made you mad, or somebody's done something you don't like, when that opportunity comes, call on God to make that way of escape.
43:47
And if you're here and you don't know Christ, I want to tell you God is faithful because He brought you here this morning.
43:54
And He will not fail to do what He has promised to do.
43:57
And this is what He has promised to do.
43:58
He has promised to save to the uttermost everyone who draws close to Him through Jesus Christ.
44:05
That means to lay down your self-righteousness, take up the righteousness of Christ, and trust in it as it were a shield, and stand boldly and confidently in the work of Jesus Christ alone.
44:21
God is faithful.
44:24
Trust in Him.
44:26
Let's pray.
44:31
Father, I thank You for Your Word.
44:34
I pray for everybody in this room right now that's heard my voice.
44:37
Father, I pray for the children.
44:39
I pray that they would understand that they don't get to heaven by having Christian parents.
44:43
They don't get to heaven by coming to church.
44:44
They don't get to heaven by doing little good things and being good little boys and girls.
44:50
They get to heaven by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.
44:55
I pray for the adults, Father.
44:57
I pray that they would trust in Christ with all their heart, leaning not on their own righteousness.
45:09
Lord, there are great benefits to being a part of the church, but none can save except Your Spirit working in the heart and giving the gift of faith.
45:17
So today, Lord, we pray that every person here would have a personal, individual, and genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
45:31
Lord, if they came today with that faith, may it be strengthened.
45:36
And if they came today without that faith, Lord, may it be given birth in their hearts.
45:39
May You take out the heart of stone, give them a heart of flesh to trust in You.
45:43
And may they want to pursue You all their days.
45:48
Run the race of faith and finish strong.
45:55
In Jesus' name, Amen.