Sunday Sermon: Flee From Idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:1-13)

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Pastor Gabriel Hughes teaches his Sunday school class from 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 on fleeing from idolatry; not even putting yourself in the position to be tempted. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

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You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a
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New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.
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Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. 1 Corinthians 10, beginning in verse 1.
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For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.
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And all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.
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For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was
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Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
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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. 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 twenty -three thousand 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.
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Nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. 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.
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Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
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No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. 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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Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to our text today, as we consider and examine these things, these warnings that are given,
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I pray that we would take this to heart, that we would understand the fragility of the human spirit and not think too highly of ourselves and then wander toward or tiptoe near temptation, thinking that we have the power and the strength to get near these things and not be pulled in by them.
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We should not get anywhere near the sin, but flee from idolatry and hold fast to our
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Lord Christ. So may our desire, may our focus be entirely Christ, and we see
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Him all the more brightly even through the text that we read today. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.
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Now in opening up here, I want to come back to that last verse first. Look at verse 13 again.
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No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation will also provide for you the way of escape.
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Now, this particular verse is cited quite often, but not really this way.
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There are certain words that are taken out of this verse and tend to get twisted to communicate something else.
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What's the way that you generally hear this verse said? God will not give you more than you can endure.
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That's it. That's exactly it. God will never give you more than you can handle. Have you ever heard that before?
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That is more than I can handle. I can't stand it when people twist that verse to say that.
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Yes, absolutely God will give you more than you can handle. Amen, Bob? Yeah, we prayed for his cancer and for his treatments this morning.
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I've visited with numerous persons who have gone through serious health ailments who have said to me,
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I can't endure this anymore. There was a pastor who was with us for the workshop just a couple of weeks ago, a little over a week ago now.
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He shared with us that he had contracted COVID and almost died from it. There was a point in time when he was laying in his hospital bed and his wife couldn't be there with him because of the restrictions the hospital had.
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She's communicating with him through iPad via remote. He says to her, laying on his bed, he said,
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I'm just ready to be done. I'm ready to go home. She said, well, we'll get you through this and as soon as they let me,
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I'll bring you right home. He said, no, you don't understand. I'm ready to go home. I'm ready to be with Jesus.
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And she ripped into him and she said, no, you're not leaving me right now.
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You are going to get through this and you're going to come to this home before you go to that home. So anyway, he said it was, it was her tenacity and her pushing it.
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What's that? Say that again. Yeah, Bob and Patricia have had the same conversation.
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So yeah, in that moment he was, I can't endure this anymore. And truly relied upon Christ and, and pleaded that the
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Lord would heal him. And surely he did. And he was able to join us for the, uh, for the workshop a couple of weeks ago.
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So there are things that we go through that are indeed more than we can handle.
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Paul talks about this at the start of second Corinthians, where he talks about the persecution they were under when they were in Asia.
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And he said to the Corinthians, we thought we had received the sentence of death. It was more than we could handle.
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In verse nine, he says, but this was to teach us to rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead death.
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My friends is more than we can handle. But God has given us deliverance from death in his son,
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Jesus Christ. There is nothing that he can't handle. He went through death for us, conquered death on our behalf so that all who are in Christ will not perish, but we'll have everlasting life.
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So that is not what this verse means. This verse does not mean God will not give you more than you can handle, but rather God will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability to resist.
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He will provide the way of escape. So no one has any excuse to say, well,
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I had no other choice, but to do this thing that God told me not to do, that the
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Bible says is sin. I had no other option, but that, and it's not true.
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God has given us a way of escape. And so he says, so Paul says to the
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Corinthians here in first Corinthians chapter 10. Now, if you'll remember our context, if we get to this, as, as we get to this text today, what have we been talking about over the course of chapters eight and nine?
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What's been the subject specifically? Well, Christian Liberty has been in there.
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Yeah, he's definitely talked about that, but like the overall problem with the Corinthians that he's had.
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Yeah, there you go. Eating meat that's been sacrificed to idols. So there are some Corinthians who are eating this meat and they're like, there's nothing wrong with it.
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An idol is an empty thing. The food itself is not defiled and that's certainly true. There isn't anything about that food that inherently defiles us, even if it has been sacrificed to some sort of pagan
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God. But in addition to this problem is the place where the Corinthians have to go in order to get the meat.
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They go into pagan temples. Where that sacrificing is taking place. And some of them might even think to themselves, well, it's okay for me to even be here and eat with these folks, even though they're pagans.
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And even though they worship these false gods, because I've been redeemed and I'm not worried about it.
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I'm not going to fall into this kind of idolatry because you know, I have Christ so I can do whatever and God will just forgive me for it.
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But Paul means to caution the Corinthians here on going anywhere near any of that. Because though it is true, as we read in chapter eight, that an idol is an empty thing.
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Idolatry is still a real thing. And people are weak.
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We're weaker than we think we are. And very, very susceptible to the temptations of our flesh.
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It's better for us to not even go near the thing that could potentially tempt us than to try to tiptoe that line and say, look how close
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I can get to it without crossing it. And so Paul gives this warning here in chapter 10.
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And he lays out an example with the Israelites and gives several do not statements here.
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So to kind of give you our outline of what we're looking at. First of all, in verses one through five, Paul says, do not be unaware.
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Remember God's goodness to Israel. Remember the wonderful blessed things that Israel received at the hand of God.
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They received all kinds of wonderful things. They saw incredible miracles. God miraculously provided for them and fed them in the wilderness.
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But where did the Israelites fall? In the wilderness. Even though they saw miraculous things, they nevertheless fell into idolatry and into condemnation and God destroyed them in the wilderness.
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All were baptized, as we read in verse two, all ate and drank, verses three and four. But remember
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God's displeasure with most, Paul says in verse five. In the second part of this section,
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Paul says that these things happen to the Israelites to be examples for us. We read that in verses six through 11.
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And in the last part, chapter three, or sorry, chapter three, part three, verses 12 to 13,
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Paul says, take heed, recognize these warnings so that you yourself will not fall into the same error that the
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Israelites fell into. Sorry, I'm trying to adjust everything on my stand here to get enough, I feel like I need like a twice as wide stand.
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So let's come back to verse one once again, where Paul addresses here or he begins, he sets in on the matter here by saying,
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I do not want you to be unaware 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 and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them.
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And the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
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He starts off saying, I do not want you to be unaware. This is like the recurring question that we've seen over the course of the letter.
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Do you not know? Remember that where Paul would say in chapter three, verse 16, or in chapter six, verse two, where he says, do you not know?
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And then talking about the sin that they had committed and what the consequences of those of that sin would be.
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We've seen that question come up several times. So this statement, I do not want you to be unaware is kind of like that.
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Paul is bringing back to their attention things that they already know. He is calling to their minds things from the scriptures that they have heard.
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These stories about the Israelites. Paul was with the Corinthians, remember, for a year and a half. So he's taught them all of these things.
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He's been through all of this with them, but he brings to their minds these things again so that they will not fall into this temptation or fall into the same error that the
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Israelites fell into. Because ultimately, what was Israel's sin in the wilderness? Idolatry.
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They worshiped false gods. They went after the same pagan gods of the pagan nations that were around them.
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The very thing that God warned them not to do, that Moses warned them not to do, was the very thing that they did.
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Now although Paul says here in verse one, I don't want you to be unaware that our fathers were all under the cloud, he's not just speaking to Hebrews and saying in some kind of a
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Hebrew context that the Israelites are only the fathers of the Hebrews. The Israelites are our spiritual fathers as well.
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When we talk about the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we're talking about our spiritual fathers.
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Though there are some of us in here who are not genetically descended from that line, but nonetheless,
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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are our patriarchs just as they were the Hebrews' patriarchs. In Galatians chapter three, it says that if we are in Christ, Abraham is our father.
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And so we consider these stories that we read about in the Old Testament even as if they had happened to our own ancestors.
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And so in verse two he says, they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food.
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Now about this statement being baptized into Moses, what would it mean to be baptized into Moses?
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Now they weren't submerged in the Red Sea. Like if somebody is baptized here, we dunk them.
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We're good Baptists, we dunk them in that pool. They're getting all the way wet. I will tell you, there was one time, there was one baptism that I did at the previous church
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I pastored in Kansas where the gal I was baptizing wouldn't go all the way under. And so I really like,
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I just dropped my hands out from under, you're going down. And so she did, she got a nostril full of water, but she went all the way under the water.
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It was about the most cruel thing I've ever done as a pastor. But I made sure as a good Baptist preacher, I was going to make sure she got all the way wet.
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Anyway, so, so the Israelites were not literally baptized in the sense that they actually entered into the
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Red Sea and got all wet, but they're baptized in this sense that they're passing through the Red Sea.
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By the same token, they were not baptized in the cloud. They did not physically put themselves inside this cloud.
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If you'll remember in Exodus, there was a pillar of cloud that guided the
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Israelites by day and a pillar of fire that guided them by night. And God was in the cloud, but that cloud, the
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Israelites themselves didn't enter into. So here, Paul states it as they are under the cloud and they pass through the sea.
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All of these things being symbolic, not being necessarily literally baptized in the
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Red Sea. So baptized into Moses, what would it mean to be baptized into Moses?
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Think about, think about us being baptized into Christ. So what might it mean for the
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Israelites to be baptized into Moses? Baptized into the law? There's, there's a sense in that.
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Yeah. They're following his direction. My footnote says oneness of spirit.
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Okay. Oneness of spirit. I don't, I don't feel like that's any clearer. What, what might that mean?
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Oneness of spirit. Well, I think it means, um, in today's, we're on the same page.
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Okay. Okay. We agree on these things, whatever the things might be.
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So I think in this context, it means that Moses was being obedient to the
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Lord and the way that he was leading the people and following God's instructions and the people were being in the same regard, even though they didn't maintain that obedience, but at this point they were being obedient by following Moses' command.
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Or by being baptized into Moses, they are committed or inaugurated into that obedience, even if they don't follow in that obedience.
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I saw a hand over here somewhere. Yes, ma 'am. Submitting. Right. Yes, submitting to Moses' authority.
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So he is the authority just as Christ is our authority. So we're baptized into Christ, we're committed to Christ, we're following Christ.
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And so the same was the case with the Israelites. They are committed to Moses, they're following Moses. So hence being baptized into Moses.
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By passing under the cloud and through the sea, Israel was dedicated to Moses. They professed subjection to his laws, his divine mission, the mission that was given to him by God, and his authority as God's representative.
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As Christians, we are baptized into Jesus Christ, the greater Moses, according to Hebrews 3 .3,
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as Jesus is God's representative in the new covenant. So, in verse 3, we read that they ate the same spiritual food.
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They were baptized in Moses in the cloud and the sea, they ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, going into the next verse, verse 4.
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So they ate the same spiritual food, which is a reference to, what do you think?
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The Lord's Supper? Well, not quite the Lord's Supper, manna, yeah, there you go, right. The manna that was given to them in the wilderness.
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So Jesus makes reference to himself as being the bread from heaven, Jesus being the fulfillment of even that bread that had been given to the
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Israelites in the wilderness. So they ate the same spiritual food, this miraculous bread that had been given to them.
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They drank the same spiritual drink. What was the spiritual drink that they had?
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There was water out of the rock. That was the literal drink that they had. So the spiritual drink, what?
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Yeah, water out of the rock. That was their literal drink, but even that drink was supposed to be representative of Christ.
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So they're even still drinking Christ. They're eating Christ, they're drinking Christ in the wilderness, when you think of it in that spiritual sense.
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So God cared for Israel in the wilderness by providing for them food to eat and water to drink, signs that God was with them.
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The rock from which the water flowed is called spiritual. Not because there was anything special about the rock, but because it was the source of God's mercy upon them.
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The rock followed them. Now that's kind of a weird picture, like Israel's wandering around in the desert and there's this rock following them along.
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It followed them in the sense that God was with Israel. They drank the spiritual water so that they were filled with spiritual things and therefore
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God accompanied them, specifically the pre -incarnate Son of God was with the
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Israelites in the wilderness. Christ was with them. You know, I actually tried to find a painting, if somebody actually had a painting of Israel wandering in the wilderness with a rock following them around.
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Because everybody, it almost seems like every story at some point, someone took it literally and did a painting of it.
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There was a, there's a translation of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai and the glow that he has, that he has to put a veil over his face.
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There's a translation that comes from that as though he has horns. So I don't know if you've seen paintings of Moses with horns.
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It's just a, you've seen it? Yeah. They're bizarre. Either it will be like there's beams of light shooting out of his head that are like horns or his hair is done up in such a way that makes it look like he has horns.
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So if you've ever seen paintings like that of Moses where it's like, why does his hair look like that? Somebody's taken that translation of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai as looking like he had horns and painted him that way.
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So hence why I was trying to find a painting of a rock actually following Israel. I thought surely somebody's done that, but I wasn't able to find one.
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If you are able to find it, share it with all of us so we may get a chuckle out of that. But then in verse five, sorry, my music stand is not staying up, so I'm just leaning down here.
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Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
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So here Paul draws out his main point that the Corinthians would not be arrogant.
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Though God provided for Israel and though Israel witnessed and received his miraculous care, with most of them,
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God was not well pleased and they were struck down in the wilderness, which is a reference to Numbers 14 .6.
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The Corinthians have likewise seen miraculous signs and wonders performed among them.
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In 2 Corinthians 12 .12, Paul says, the signs of apostleship were clearly demonstrated among you.
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The Corinthians have seen these miraculous signs, but they should not be so confident in themselves to think that they are not susceptible to falling into the same kind of idolatry that Israel fell into, especially when you consider how prevalent idolatry was around Corinth at that time.
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We talked about that in the beginning when we did our introduction to 1 Corinthians, the kind of idolatry that was going on in the city, the number of pagan temples, the sexual immorality that was even wrapped up in all of that idolatry.
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And so much of the idolatry was infused even within their own economics and politics. The stuff was all over the place.
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Pastor Tom mentions this in the sermon this morning, so I don't want to take away too much, but he mentions the
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Grammy Awards from last week. Anybody see any kind of highlight at all that came from the
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Grammy Awards? I hope you did not have to see the same thing that I saw, but unfortunately
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I spend way too much time on social media and I had to see that video replayed several times.
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Just without giving too much details, there was a song that was performed called
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Unholy, that was the name of the song. It was introduced by Madonna, of all people.
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And the artist that performed this song, Unholy, was dressed up like Satan.
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And the lights that were filling the auditorium during the entire time were red. And there was all kinds of other scandalous things that were going on at the same time during this song.
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I mean, it was literally Satan worship in the middle of the Grammys. Unless you think I'm adding too much into that, days before this performance at the
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Grammy Awards, this artist posted a picture on Twitter of the rehearsal that they were doing for this particular performance and CBS, the network that aired the
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Grammys, said to the picture of that performance, we cannot wait to worship.
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The CBS network said that. It was literally
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Satan worship at the Grammy Awards. Now, I don't encourage you to go look for that video.
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Don't do it. Because of the other things that were going on in that video, other than just a man dressed up as Satan and singing a song
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Unholy. By the way, every time I saw that video, I had it on mute. I have no idea what the song sounds like.
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Praise God. Because I don't want it in my head. There was, for a period of time up until,
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I see you Randy, hang on, I'll call on you in a minute. For a period of time up until 2020 when
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COVID hit, about two or three times a year I would go around to a different youth group and I would give a talk about the kind of music that they listened to.
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And part of my talk included going through the top 10 songs on the top 40 chart at the time, and I would read their lyrics to them.
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So that the youth would hear, do you understand this is what's in your songs? Like you probably don't think about it when you're in the weight room jamming to this song or you're driving to school listening to this song, but now you're in youth group and I read it out loud and you're kind of embarrassed by the lyric, aren't you?
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Because you don't think of the lyrics in that context until you're at church and suddenly you realize how offensive they are.
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I haven't done that talk in about three years, again, because COVID happened and we weren't traveling around as much.
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And then I moved to Texas and I was doing that talk mostly around Kansas. But whenever I would do that talk,
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I would go through the list of the top 40 songs, but I would never listen to them. I would only read the lyrics.
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I would never listen to the song because I have a mind that just sucks music in and that stuff gets stuck in my head and I'll be singing it for days.
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I made a joke in second service last week when we sang that song Calvary. I said,
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I'm going to be singing that song Calvary all week long and amen, I did. I was singing Calvary all week long.
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I love that song and it was in my head all week. But that's the way my mind works. I was a music major before I changed my music to communications.
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I just have a mind that music just tends to get stuck in my head. So whenever some of this stuff comes up, whenever it's a news story like that or I'm researching music for other purposes,
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I don't listen to the songs. I only read the lyrics because I don't want those things stuck in my head.
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I know my own weaknesses that I don't want to give myself over to that and let my mind be taken over by those kinds of things.
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It's the same sort of thing that Paul is warning the Corinthians about here. I'm sorry about that, Randy. Go ahead. I can see that because they're accepting their awards and they've watched this and not watched this.
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Right. That has, they've become increasingly tolerant over the years because there have been occasions a decade ago or more where, this isn't the first time,
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I mean this kind of stuff happens at the Grammys all the time. This, it might happen this year in such a context that somebody's eyes become aware of it like, oh wow,
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I didn't even know that was going on at the Grammys, but it happens all the time. Madonna did the same thing back in 2015. So this kind of stuff always happens.
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But whenever you hear about that and they have their categories for best gospel artists and stuff like that,
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I'll read accounts of those artists getting up and leaving. For example, when Katy Perry performed a very similar kind of performance several years ago,
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Natalie Grant got up and walked out of that because she was just so disgusted by it. I remember hearing that testimony.
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But the Christians who participate in the Grammys have now become increasingly tolerant of it. And now they don't get up and walk out of it, they just,
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I mean, do they participate in it? How much of that does that become a participant in that?
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Right. Yeah. Didn't see anything like that. Of course not. I mean, the Christian artists who want to win
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Grammy Awards are not going to make a statement about how appalling the Grammy Awards were because they still want to win
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Grammy Awards. If I speak out against the Grammys, they're not going to invite me back next year. So yeah, again, that's why they become increasingly tolerant of it and why you don't hear too many accounts anymore of Christians speaking out against that.
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So, Paul has a great concern for the Corinthians here.
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You take that same sort of scenario, that sort of thing going on at the Grammy Awards, apply it to the Corinthians in their context.
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There's Satan worship going on all over Corinth. Now, it's not exactly Satan worship, it's not in that way.
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We worship Satan. It's just the idolatry that's going on there. It's the same thing. Sometimes it's not as blatant as being a
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Satanist, but it's definitely there. You will know them by their fruit, as Jesus said. So Paul, with a very caring concern for the
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Israelites, he's not trying to be a fuddy duddy here. He's not trying to rain on their parade or prevent them from having any fun, but he cares about these men and women that they would not fall into temptation and be overcome.
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So he gives them these examples. I'm just going to pick up my Bible here because it is way too far from my eyes.
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Here we go. So he presents these examples, and you'll notice that these examples that are given, these four do not statements, they're bookended by Paul saying this, verse 6, these things took place as examples for us.
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He says that in verse 6, and he comes back to say that again in verse 11. 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. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
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Anybody know where that's from? Maybe you've got a footnote in your Bible that gives the reference. Yeah, that's right.
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Exodus 32, it was when Moses came down off the mountain and Aaron has helped the people build this golden calf and they're worshiping the golden calf.
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It says the people ate and drank and they got up to play. What does got up to play mean? In this particular context, it's not.
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I checked multiple commentaries just to make sure I was reading it right. But yeah, in this particular instance, it's dancing.
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But usually getting up to play does mean fornication. At the golden calf, we don't have an indication that there was fornication going on, but there was dancing that was going on.
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And there were people that died as a result of that idol worship as part of the judgment that came upon them because of what they did.
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Exactly. That's why we don't dance. Yeah. It's not even so much that we don't, but we can't.
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I mean, have you seen a Baptist dance? So yeah. Verse 8, we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did.
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So now this is a different circumstance than the golden calf. The golden calf reference that was in verse 7, verse 8, don't indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did.
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And 23 ,000 fell in a single day. Now what account is that? What is that in reference to? That was when the details are fuzzy.
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Okay. But they were living next to a town and the guys, the
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Israelites, were getting ladies from there, bringing them back to their tent. Yes. Exactly.
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The Moabite women. Yeah. You're thinking of the Moabites. That's exactly the account. So it's in the book of Numbers. And yeah, there was the story of Phineas.
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had taken the spear and had killed a man and a woman who were fornicating, which ended the plague that was killing
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Israel because God's wrath had come upon the camp. So as a result of that, not just because of the plague, but also in addition to that, the number of people that were involved in this that were put to death just by a matter of a fulfillment of the law, 23 ,000 fell in a single day as a result of this fornication.
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Verse nine, we must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents.
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What is that in reference to? That's also in Numbers. Numbers 21, which is the story of?
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Yeah, they were grumbling against God. So God sent vipers into the camp, and if a person was bit, they died.
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But then Moses, in an act of mercy, in the instruction of God, yes?
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That's right. So he puts a golden serpent on a staff or on a pole, and he erects it above the camp.
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And if the people, when they got bit by a snake, looked at the bronze serpent, then they would be healed of their snake bite.
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Jesus referenced that in John 3, 15, saying that just as Moses raised up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
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Son of Man be lifted up so that all who look upon Christ will be healed. Jesus saying that that was even foreshadowing the sacrifice that he would give.
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In verse 10, Paul says, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.
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Now this one's a little more difficult, not quite as specific, because the only time that God is mentioned as a destroyer in Exodus is in the 10th plague, where the destroyer comes through Egypt and strikes down the firstborn.
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Then you have the story a little bit later on, also in the book of Numbers, of Korah's rebellion, and the ground opens up beneath Korah and the men who were with him, and swallows them up, and then there were others that were consumed by fire as well, and so they were destroyed by the destroyer.
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The same destruction that came upon Egypt for their wickedness is the destruction that came upon the
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Israelites for their wickedness, because they contended with God. And God gave them that warning, that if they obey
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God, they will be blessed in the land that God will give to them, but if they disobey God, the same plagues that came upon Egypt would come upon the
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Israelites as well. Verse 11, now these things happened to them as an example.
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We come back to that statement again. But they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.
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The end of the ages meaning, we're in these last days, the days of Christ, very specifically.
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Verse 12, Paul says, therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall.
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You think you stand, you think you have confidence in yourself, you think that you are strong enough to be able to resist this temptation.
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But Paul, being very pastoral, being even very fatherly with this church, is saying you are not as strong as you think you are.
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And the closer you get to that sin, the more likely you are to be tempted by that sin and fall into that sin.
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And will you fall into judgment the way the Israelites did when they were in the wilderness? I've had times in my life where I thought
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I could do that. In fact, I actually did indulge in the sin. And I thought,
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I can do just this much sin, and as long as I don't go too far, as long as I don't cross that line, then
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I'll be all right. What do you think happened to me? I kept getting deeper and deeper into it.
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I fell worse, started doing worse and worse stuff. And praise God that He did not destroy me when
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I was indulging in my sin, because I certainly deserved it. But convicted my heart and led me out.
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And I found the way of escape. He gave me the way of escape. And I knew what it was.
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It was right there. It was plain as day. What's the way of escape? Don't do that. Run to Christ instead of running to the sin.
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I knew the way of escape. But I, because of the passions of my own flesh, kept going back and doing the sinful thing.
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And it is only by the mercy of God that I wasn't destroyed when I was in the midst of my sin. Sometimes when
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I share my broader testimony, I'll have somebody ask me, do you think that you weren't a Christian during that time?
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I said, I don't know what to tell you. But all I can tell you is, I didn't perish then, and God has rescued me out of that now.
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That's all I can tell you about it. So in verse 13, no temptation has overtaken you 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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So none of us have any excuse to fall into sin. None of us can say, well
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I couldn't control myself, I didn't have any other option. None of us are able to say that. Just as we've been going through Romans 1, we just finished up Romans 1 last week, and we read in Romans 1 .20
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that God has made Himself known, His divine nature and His eternal power are clearly seen in all that has been made, so they are without what?
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Excuse. They are without excuse. No one on that day of judgment will be able to say, well God, I couldn't see you,
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I didn't know where you were. He's plainly seen in all that has been made. Even the eternal and divine qualities of Himself are seen in all that has been made, so men are without excuse.
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And by that same way, my friends, and what we're being told here in verse 13, is none of us have any excuse to sin.
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None of us are given such an option where, well I didn't have any other choice, I could do this sin or I could do this sin, that was my only two choices.
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No, there's always a way of escape. Now the way of escape is very practical in the sense that here's the sin, don't do the sin, run away from it.
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In fact, what's the very next verse? Somebody read verse 14 for me, out loud. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
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Flee from idolatry. That's really kind of a bridging verse, it sums up the section that we're looking at today and really starts the section that Paul is going to share with us next week.
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Paul McClung, not Paul the Apostle, but he's going to teach on the remaining portion of chapter 10 next week.
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So it really kind of starts, it launches into the next section, we can finish up this section, flee from idolatry and we start the next, flee from idolatry, run away from it.
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So there's the very practical application of that. Yes sir. 1
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Corinthians 10 .13 is a foundational cornerstone of my counseling ministry.
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Every time I meet with someone for the first time, I give them that verse as a memory verse because that verse is full of hope that whatever they're going through,
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God is going to bring through, and it has five promises in that one verse, and a point goes out to them.
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And so it's just a way of giving hope to people that come in for us.
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Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah, so in case you didn't hear Bob saying verse 13, a foundation for his counseling ministry, because it is a verse of hope.
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There is a way out of this. There is a way of escape. And even the promise that's given there, that you will be able to endure it.
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We will be able to resist the temptation. We will be able to endure if we turn to Christ and cling to Christ and hold fast to him.
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As we have just a few seconds left, let's close in prayer, and then we'll make ready for the next service.
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Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for giving us the way of escape, for forgiving our sins through Jesus Christ.
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We have the forgiveness of sins. We have the promise of eternal life. We have the righteousness of Christ that we have been clothed in.
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So may we walk in that righteousness, hating those things that stain the flesh, that stain the soul, that would stain these garments.
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We don't go anywhere near the sin or the worldliness. We don't even allow ourselves to be enticed by it in any way.
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But we turn to Christ and we hold fast to him, who is our way of escape and eternal life.
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And we ask that you forgive us our sins and that you lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake.
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As David prayed in Psalm 23. May we walk in those paths of righteousness to the glory of God, fleeing from idolatry and holding fast to Jesus Christ our
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Savior. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. And so we respond with praise for all he is and all he's done.
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Let's praise him, praise him. Praise him, praise him,
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Jesus our blessed Redeemer. Sing, O earth, his wonderful love proclaim.
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Hail him, hail him, highest archangels in glory.
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Strength and honor give to his holy name.
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Like a shepherd, Jesus will guard his children.
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In his arms he carries them all day long.
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Praise him, praise him, tell of his excellent greatness.
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Praise him, praise him, ever in joyful song.
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Praise him, praise him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer.
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For our sins he suffered and bled and died.
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He our love, our hope of eternal salvation.
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Hail him, hail him, Jesus the crucified. Sound his praises,
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Jesus who bore our sorrow deep and strong.
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Praise him, praise him, tell of his excellent greatness.
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Praise him, praise him, ever in joyful song.
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Praise him, praise him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer. Heavenly portals, lapid flows at his feet.
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Jesus, Savior, reigneth forever and ever.
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Him, prophet and glory unto the
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Lord. Praise him, praise him, all song.
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This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.
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But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, Gospel -teaching,
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Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.