Wilderness Warning (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendrock. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing

Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

Paul is using these exhortations to make sure that saints persevere till the end.

Verse three, let's do the food first, then the drink. And all ate the same spiritual food.

All Israel ate the same spiritual food. What were they doing? They were out in the middle of the wilderness and what kind of food were they eating?

Spiritual food, food that doesn't exist, food with no calories, food with no nutrition. It's just spiritual food.

From the divine source, God, God gives them something to eat. What was it called in the middle of the wilderness?

It came down and you didn't know what it was. What is this? Manna. An easy way to remember it is when you are from New England and you go down to the manor and they serve you really funny food and you don't really know what it is and you say, what is this at the manor?

And then you pronounce things like a New Englander, it's the manna. What is this at the manna? That's why

I don't go that often, but when I do, I like to say, what is this? This is the manna. So anyway, that's a good way to remember it, isn't it?

This has nothing to do with the substance of the food, spiritual. This has everything to do with who gave it.

The Father, Son, and the Spirit gave this food. They are divine, therefore it's a spiritual gift that came supernaturally from heaven every day, except on the

Sabbath for 40 years. And they all ate it. Who didn't eat? They all ate it.

And Paul is saying, even though they all ate it, not all of them ran into the promised land.

The origin of the manna was God. Psalm 78 calls it angel's food.

Why don't you turn your Bibles to Exodus 16 for a second. Let's take a look at this. Your homework assignment, by the way, this week is to read

Exodus. Now when Paul says food that they ate, spiritual food, everybody knew

Exodus. We don't know it that well, so this week, next week, and the following week, we're going to be in Exodus in numbers a lot.

It's not because I don't think you're stupid, that's not why we're doing it, but I want you to think like these people did and understand the

Old Testament. Exodus 16, let's just take a look at the passage to which

Paul alludes. Exodus 16, chapter 16, verse 1, they set out from Elim and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai.

It's a different Sinai, by the way, on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses.

I wonder how loud that must have been. And Aaron in the wilderness and the people of Israel said, would we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full?

For you brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. What were they doing in chapter 15?

Singing. They were singing about being delivered through the

Red Sea. We left Egypt and you know what, Egypt was an all you could eat buffet.

Ever go to some of those buffets? It's all you could eat. You feel bad if you don't overeat, didn't get your money's worth.

That's what Egypt was like, Moses. We're going to die out here. You brought us out here. Here comes the test.

Verse 4, then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I'm about to rain bread from heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not.

On the sixth day when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, at evening you shall know that it was the

Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your grumbling against the

Lord. Notice how when you grumble against the leader, Moses, you're grumbling against the Lord sovereignly instituting those leaders for what are we that you grumble against us?

And Moses said, when the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the

Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him, what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the

Lord. Skip down to verse 14, and when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake like thing.

Fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, manna, what is it?

For they did not know what it was and Moses said, it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. Now I love what the liberals do, not because I like what they say, but because they're so kooky.

The second you say there's no supernatural God, he doesn't do supernatural things, you know what you end up doing?

How do you explain this? Bodenheimer says this was honeydew excretion from two types of insects that are like aphids and that they live in the tamarisk trees in the region.

A sweet sugary substance, he said. Bad news for Bodenheimer, how do you account for this food stinking if you got too much of it?

Another weasel approach, did I just say that? Sorry.

Another liberal approach is that these are lichens, lichen fruits that grow on the rocks about the size of a pea and they're light enough to be blown around by the wind coming from heaven.

That fed the Israelites, up to two million of them for 40 years. Bodenheimer forgot that only three to six weeks in July do these things yield their fruit.

Verse 16, this is what the Lord has commanded. He said, gather of it, each of you, as much as he can eat.

You'll take an omer each, according to the number of persons that you have in your tent or his tent.

And the people did so, they gathered some more, some less. What size of a supermarket does it take to feed two million people in the desert?

This is miraculously provided, that's why it's called spiritual. And what's more, there's water.

Verse 4, and all the people drank the same spiritual drink. I'm reading to you what's in 1

Corinthians 4, let's go back, 1 Corinthians 10, let's go back there. And all drank the same spiritual drink.

What do you do with these people out in the wilderness for 40 years? What do they eat? They ate manna? It came from God.

It was spiritual food. Real food with calories and nutrients, but from God, divine source, therefore called spiritual.

What are they going to drink? They've got to drink water. How do you get all these people to drink water? That's a lot of water in the wilderness.

They all drank the water. And before we look at that passage in the

Old Testament, maybe we will, maybe we won't. Part of the, one of the wildest verses in the New Testament is 1

Corinthians 10, 4. I don't know what color highlighter you use for wild verses, but you want to get that out right now.

This is the wild verse. This is the crazy verse. This is the verse where you go, wait a second.

Wait a second. What's happening here? They all drank the same spiritual drink. Here's the wild part.

For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Forty years sojourned in the desert, and the tradition was this, according to the

Jewish rabbis. This big rock followed them, rolling around.

Rolling around, following. Some think it was a well, and wherever they went, you know, the cloud took them around, and wherever they went, there was another kind of cloud thing, and it wasn't really a cloud.

It was a well. The rock followed them, and the rock was

Christ. Well, one thing we know about the water, there's a divine origin.

One thing we know about the manna, divine origin, but Paul gives a little more explanation. Now hang on to this.

You'll get it. Manna comes out of the sky. Huh. God's giving us manna, because things that come out of the sky are from God, but when you get water in the middle of the wilderness, how do you know that water's from God?

Maybe we just walked up. There's a big stream. Maybe there's just some water in the vein over there, and Moses stumbled over there and accidentally hit this area, and out it comes.

It's just kind of natural. From heaven, you go supernaturally. God is giving us food, but how do you know it's coming from God spiritually with a divine origin when it's water, and so now

Paul adds this, and he says, you know who gave you water for 40 years in the wilderness? Jesus did.

The Messiah did. Manna doesn't need an explanation of why it's a divine source, but water does, and what does

Paul say here? The rock followed them. Who's the rock? All right.

Bible study 101, context, Bible study 101, authorial intent,

Bible study 101, number three, ready? Think like a

Jew. Back in those days. If I say to you, rock, what would you say?

I guarantee you would not say, enroll. You would not say that. Rock, you would say what?

If I said to you, I run over and get a bunch of kids back in the wilderness, in the wandering area, all these

Israelites, and I would go up and I would say, rock, you know what they would say? God is the

Redeemer and Savior. When they heard the word rock, they thought

God is a Redeemer and a Savior. Of course, they thought, you know, what faithful, what else do rocks have as an attribute?

Steadfast, immovable, unless it's the face of the guy up in New Hampshire. Typically, rocks are very stable.

What was that all about? Rock. When you read the

Psalms, you quickly find out that, of course, rock means stable and other things, but primarily, at the top of the list,

Savior, Redeemer. Who followed them around to give them water? Who was there the whole time?

Who was preexistent? When Abraham, you know, Abraham saw his day and was glad,

Jesus just was born. Jesus had no beginning. He had a beginning when he cloaked himself with humanity, but he was in eternity past and he was the one who took care of Israel by feeding them and by giving them water.

Listen as I read these Psalms and spot the words, save, Savior, salvation, our

Redeemer. Everyone has Jesus the rock, excuse me, just has

God as a rock. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock.

I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation. The Lord lives, blessed be the rock, and exalted be the

God of my salvation. Oh Lord, my rock and my

Redeemer, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

Incline your ear to me, rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me.

He alone is my rock and my salvation. On God rests my salvation and my glory.

My mighty rock, my refuge is God. Be a rock of refuge to which

I may continually come. You have given the command to save me for you are my rock and my fortress.

They remember that God was their rock, the most high God, their Redeemer. You shall cry to me, you are my

Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Oh, come, let us sing to the

Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. When you think of rock, if you're a

Jew, you think of Savior, Redeemer. Who provided for the temporal salvation of Israel in the wilderness?

Jesus Christ, the Anointed One. Jesus is Yahweh. The source of the water was

Jesus. How many times in the Pentateuch, in the first five books of the

Bible, are there occasions where there was a rock that gave water in the wilderness? Two times.

Once at the beginning and once at the end. What did they do, though, all the way in between? We have one account at the beginning in Exodus, one account at the end in Numbers.

Who gave them water walking around the wilderness? Who's been to Israel here before? Several have.

When you go to the wilderness and you walk around, you need water. Who gave them water? And Paul is trying to say,

Jesus gave them water. It's pretty fascinating to think about.

It wasn't that Sudanese camel cores tracked down water and hit the cliff and a stream gushed out.

It wasn't a special vein of water that Moses just found. I'll tell you what, it wasn't that Moses had a divining rod, either.

The miraculous provision of water in the desert comes from Jesus. The rock

God saves, delivers. So Paul says this,

Israel was fed by God, Israel was given drink by God, and they were all taken care of with all their needs, but only two made it in the promised land.

Corinth, don't push your liberties and fall off the edge.

Just because you've benefited from Christ doesn't mean you'll finish well. Have you benefited from Christ?

Has he blessed you? Well, you say, well, God has really blessed me and my family.

Okay, great. Praise the Lord, finish well. You say, yeah, but that doesn't sound very

Reformed. That kind of sounds Arminian. That's kind of, you know, pietism. No, it's not.

Pietism is lay back and let God. By the way, implying that until you lay back,

God can't do anything. Laying back now, I can let God. But Paul is saying this,

God has blessed you, run. I think this actually ends up being a great

New Year's Day message. This is a great message for the saints of Bethlehem Bible Church.

Who knows what will happen this year? If you say, you know what? I've ran for long enough and now

I'm just kind of done. Well, you know what? If you're 75, 85 or 95 and you can't put as much effort into it,

I get it. And the good news is the older saints that we have here can be on their ill bed and be on their comforter thinking, when

I did have strength, I ran well. Thank you, Lord. And now I just have a different ministry to pray for people and other things and encourage them.

But if you're younger, this is it. If you think this year is about money and success and power and promotion and a better job and better career and all those things,

I hope God blesses you. Don't we want to be blessed by God? Absolutely. But if the top of the list is,

I want to run. For the longest time, we only had a small little

TV. We don't get TV. We have the rabbit ears and we had the small little

TV about that big. It was kind of a monitor that we just put DVDs in and stuff. Somebody gave us a little bit bigger

TV. And I remember watching basketball because we get one channel.

Well, we get lots of channels, but just it's not English. So the only channel I could watch, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Praise the Lord, Tower of Babel. Luke sometimes and I would watch some basketball game.

And we went to watch and, you know, it doesn't get in very well, the reception is kind of blurry and fuzzy and all kinds of white stuff floating down.

Man, what is this looking around? We got the bigger TV and the better rabbit ears.

And Luke said, almost every NBA player has tattoos.

Hard to see when your TV is that big. Where's the ball? You can't even tell. You know what would be cool is if I could put a big screen up here just for a moment.

I don't want. That's not my style in terms of preaching. But just imagine the big screens that you see, like an

IMAX screen of somebody running full blast. A hundred meter dash.

And you know, when you see the close -ups, what do you see? You see veins bulging. You see calves just totally pumped, full of blood and just bulging out.

You see sometimes drool coming out of the guy's mouth. Sometimes ladies, if they run, they run.

Mrs. Felix, we want her to win. She was one of, he was her dad. It's a long story.

Forget it. I'm wondering if I could just take your year this year and compress it and show you up close to say, you know what?

It's kind of saunter. I'm saved. Once saved, always saved. I'm going to make it. I can't have the

Spirit of God unseal me. I'm a Christian. I'm Calvinist. I'm Reformed. I'm this.

Once saved, always saved. Eternal security. I got it. I got it all done. Well, since God has done all that, you run to win.

Yeah, but you see, God, I got these other plans. And then once the kids are out of the house, then every fiber goes for the gospel.

Paul is saying, like I said two weeks ago, and it's weird to tell this to a congregation, run well because that's what gives glory to God.

And if you're not running well, God might cut you down. He cut down all the

Israelites, including Moses. And you say, well, then you better preach yourself. God might cut you down.

He might. And I've often prayed, Lord, if I'm going to give you dishonor and take away from your fame and your glory,

I'd just as soon die. Take me to heaven now. And you know the interesting thing is

I thought the other day, at the end of chapter 11, God cut down some

Christians for taking communion wrongly. He cut them down. You're like, well, my systematic theology, you can't lose your salvation.

Of course you can't lose your salvation. And since you can't, since God has sealed you, then run well.

What's the worst that's going to happen as you burn out for God? Oh, I don't want to burn out for God. I've got to save it. For what?

The Mayan calendar is this year. No, I'm sorry. Just kidding.

We believe in the eminent return of Christ. This is the real deal.

I met a young man this week. Probably he was 24 years old. Big guy.

And it was at a gym working. Nobody else was around. I told him I was a pastor.

He said, what kind? I said, Protestant. He said, I'm a Roman Catholic. And then he looked at me and he said, what's the difference between Catholics and Protestants?

I just went like this. I just thought, this is a slow ball. Wah, wah, wah.

This is perfect. So I gently explained the differences. He said, is premarital sex a sin?

So I was thinking to myself, he either is doing that or he wants to. And now he wants to know from me.

So I opened up 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and said fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God.

You can be forgiven, such were some of you, but fornicators don't inherit the kingdom of God. And if you practice fornication on a regular basis, it shows that you're unrighteous and that you're not born again.

And it's a sin against God. I said, the Christian sex ethic is not no, it's yes, all you want in marriage.

And if you're not married, yes, it is a sin. I could tell.

He didn't really like that answer, but he was glad to know the answer. And I said,

I think you need to be forgiven. He said, I do. How could

I be forgiven? I felt like I was in a movie or something. These words are coming out of my mouth and I go, this isn't just words.

Sometimes when you say, I got to go to church and I got to go to work. For me, it's the same difference. And you just kind of get caught up in this.

And I thought, these are the words of eternal life. They're not my words, but God has equipped me and I can give him these words.

And I said, you know, the best that you can do is unrighteousness.

The best that you do is like a filthy rag. And I told him what filthy rag actually meant in the

Hebrew because he cleaned both men and women's facilities there. I said, that's your best.

What are you going to do? I looked at him and I said these words. You're a dead man walking.

He said, I know. I'm a dead man walking. Then I preached to the gospel hymn of grace.

There was a black piece of paper and a white piece of paper. I put the white piece of paper over the black piece of paper and talked about our sins.

Christ treading in us with his righteousness. Put the black piece of paper over the white piece of paper. Our sins

Jesus bears even though he's not a sinner. God credits them to his person. God raised him from the dead.

We went through the whole thing. I said, you can be forgiven. What's the tie in?

The tie in is you too are a dead man walking. I know for sure.

This isn't a scare tactic, but I'm going to bury some of you this year. I'm going to bury you.

You know what? Not for my sake, even though it would help me. I love to bury people who ran well for the

Lord. In all my years of burying people, I haven't buried that many who ran well.

Forget for me, because you won't think of me when you're dead. For the

Lord, doesn't he deserve your very best? Everything you have, he's given to you.

He is not afraid to cut people down who just coast. Run well for the glory of God.

Run well for the glory of God because you can. Because it is the spirit of God working in you.

Because of all these benefits. Because we're not running to get our salvation. That would be an enemy to grace.

But we're running because of our salvation. That is an evidence of grace. This is your year.

I honestly can say it. I don't care about the building. I don't care about the land. I care about you running the race well.

And if you don't want to run the race well, I might as well just tell you this right now. Coming up in this chapter, coming up in the next several chapters, it gets worse.

This is not a good church for you if you want to coast. I want you to feel the pressure. It's divine pressure.

Corinth, run well or else. Now here's the good news. We're not Corinth. Sometimes we act like the

Corinthians, but generally we're not Corinth. But what's certain is

Paul says, as I imitate Christ, you imitate me. And Paul ran to the very end.

And Paul was not cut down. Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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