Grumbling, Mumbling, Stumbling - [1 Corinthians 10:10]

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I think of three things when I sing that song, in no particular order. I think of J. Vernon McGee, because I think that's his theme song,
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Jesus Paid It All. I also remember back when my kids were really little, every single night
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I tucked them to bed singing that song, just to hold their little bodies firmly with my hand like daddy's here, and then
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I would sing that song. And then I also remember that it's really a good paradigm for the
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Christian life. We don't do things to earn God's favor. We can never do that. I mean, how much would you have to do to earn
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God's favor? But since Christ Jesus has earned God's favor, then we want to respond with love, obedience, out of a heart of gratitude, versus out of a heart of trying to keep ourselves justified.
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And it's exactly what's happening in 1 Corinthians. Even though we're in the passage now in chapter 10, that has to do with a lot of imperatives, a lot of responses, a lot of preaching kind of text, stop that, don't do that, watch out for that.
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We're still underneath the rubric of chapter 1, and that is there's a great faithful God who's done it all.
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And because of what He's done for you, don't we owe it to Him to respond with obedience?
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Don't we owe it to Him to be thankful and full of gratitude and not be into some of the things that Paul talks about?
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The answer is yes. So that is a great paradigm for the Christian life. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
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The option of us having to owe it all to Him, we would never get it all done. I was talking to my daughter yesterday in the car, and I was describing to her something that is maybe not the most fun thing to talk about, but is a very good teaching tool.
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Sometimes little things can mess up really good things. You can have a lot of good and something little can really mess you up.
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When I was a kid, I remember to this day, I was eating a Reese's peanut butter cup. To me, that's a good thing.
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And it was a mini one, usually the big ones you bite in half, but for some reason, I bit this small one in half.
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And I just love the peanut butter, I love the chocolate. Somebody got peanut butter on my chocolate, you got chocolate on my peanut butter, for you older folks.
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I took a bite of that little peanut butter cup, and for whatever reason, I just looked, and there was the worm just looking right at me.
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I figured, well, it's protein, this ain't the rest, no. And within the same year,
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I was eating a Hostess kind of Twinkie type of deal, things that my mother in Nebraska would give me for breakfast.
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It wasn't supposed to be something hard in there, and I was biting it, and I thought, something's in here that's not supposed to be in there.
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It's messing me up. So I spit it out, and it was a big fingernail. I said to my daughter,
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I'll have everyone's attention with my introduction. Something so good, spoiled by something so little, is a good thing, but one little thing can cause the problem.
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And in our passage today, this is not a rebuke, because I don't think this is happening, but it'll be good preventative maintenance.
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The sin of complaining in a local church can destroy it.
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So many good things can be going on. Evangelism, and ministry, and service, and fellowship, and one another's.
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It's like the peanut butter, it's like the chocolate. And then over here you have the little worm of complaining, dissatisfaction.
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It can be a really big problem. Yesterday I was watching a businessman talk about business, and he said this.
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He said, if somebody is in your organization, and they complain, and they grumble, and they're divisive, you fire them immediately.
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Why? Because they affect everyone. They set the tone.
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One or two people who complain, who murmur, who grumble, can affect everyone.
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Well, that's probably good advice if you're in a business, but if we're in a church, it's hard to fire people like you.
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I don't mean that. I don't mean grumbling kind of people like you. But this is a volunteer deal.
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God has, in one sense, we're here voluntarily. In the bigger sense, of course, God recruited us, and that's involuntarily.
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But the way to appeal to those caught in the sin of complaining and grumbling is to appeal to you, if this is you.
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Of course, we all struggle with it. Based on who Jesus is, and what he's done, and then you apply the word of God, driven by the
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Spirit, to then make you say to yourself, I ought not to do that anymore. That is, in fact, a sin, not necessarily against other people, our leadership, but against the
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God who bought me. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.
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And so let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, and we're coming to a passage that I probably wouldn't normally preach, but since we're going verse by verse, we have to preach it all.
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Paul is preaching to the church of Corinth, and they were messed up. I don't think our church is a
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Corinthian church. There are carnal people here. We all act carnally at times.
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We have immature people here, but we have a lot of dear saints who serve, and who are growing, and are maturing.
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I sat in my office this morning, in my study, and we have about 18 men there in discipleship, reading through this book, talking about the sovereignty and salvation of God.
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This is a pastor's dream church. And so even though Paul is laying the wood to the church of Corinth, we still want to look at it, but this is...
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I'm not trying to lay the wood to you today. I'm not trying to say, you're a bunch of Corinthians, and everybody here has got the problem of complaining.
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I don't think that's true at all. But in the midst of going to two services, in the midst of buying land, in the midst of having more people here, and we're crowded, there's not enough room, and the gravel, and the parking lot, and all these things, it gives us a possibility, at least, that we could complain.
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And the passage today, here's what the passage is, and so I preach it as they come. The passage today talks about this.
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Are you ready? Don't complain about the leaders, spiritual leaders God has given you.
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You say, that's so self -serving. Why don't you just preach a sermon on how to get a raise? Okay, maybe
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I will. If it's the next verse, I'll do it. Paul is talking to the
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Corinthians, and you know, with a pastoral heart, he loves them, and he's ministered to them, and he wants to do everything he can to tell them, look, this is how you respond in the light of a
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God who made reconciliation, made you reconcile to God. A God who forgave you all your sins, and he wants them to follow his lead.
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Yet, they don't like it, particularly, well, there's nothing wrong with going to a pagan temple and eating the food because the food doesn't have an idol in it, so what's going on?
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And they're pushing against Paul's leadership, and they're complaining. And Paul is going to take them to a passage today, just like we did the last three weeks, where we go to an
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Old Testament passage, and Paul tries to teach them, listen, this is a big deal. Complaining is a big sin.
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And when you complain about the weather, you complain about your spouse, you complain about your kids, you complain about other people in the church, or specifically, in this passage today, you complain about the leaders who, by the way, are sinful and frail and fallible.
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When you complain about God's ordained leaders, get this, you are complaining about God.
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God, you could have given me better leaders, could have given me more wise leaders. You could be saying this to yourself, if it was
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God's eternal plan, we could have had John MacArthur as a pastor, we could have had
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R .C. Sproul as a pastor, we could have had James Boyce as a pastor, and we've got
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Abendroth. You could be thinking that way. Those of you who are smiling are thinking that way.
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We could have Charles Spurgeon. Don't you know better, God? You're supposed to be good and wise and all -knowing, and we got a
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Nebraska hick, that's what we got, eating Twinkies for breakfast kind of guy.
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So this whole thing today, I want to make sure you understand. I personally, and I know I can speak for the elders, we don't say to ourselves, we got a bunch of complainers.
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Fifteen years ago, thirteen years ago, we had a lot of complainers. I actually preached a sermon from James 5 on complaining, stood at that door right there and somebody came up to me and started complaining.
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I'm not kidding. Who could make that up? So I have no wood to apply,
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I'm not going to say, you know, here's the rod, I'm just going to say this. Paul wants you to make sure in your mind that you don't say to yourself, you know, it's my husband, it's my job, it's my this, it's my that, because God gave you all those things.
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But the passage today is, when you complain against God's sovereignly ordained leaders, you're complaining not against the leaders, but you're complaining against God.
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Which according to God's word, listen, is a heinous sin worthy of death.
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And just like God killed 23 ,000 to 24 ,000 people in the wilderness for sexual immorality, it's that bad, so too
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God mowed down 14 ,700 people because they complained. So I know for me personally,
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I don't usually talk about my failings and my sin because I'm here to preach to you all this week,
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I'm trying to deal with my failings before God. But I hate it when I complain. I hate complaining and murmuring and grumbling.
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And so we want to be a church that does the opposite. A church full of thankful hearts, praise, thanksgiving,
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God, you're good, we don't deserve any of this, and you're doing very, very good things to us. So let's look at the passage today, chapter 10, verse 6 of 1
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Corinthians. We're going verse by verse. We will speed up, but there's so much Old Testament import in these last several verses, we had to just slow down.
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Let me read you verses 6 through 10 to catch up and to figure out where we've been contextually.
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Paul is saying, don't be idolaters, don't be sexually immoral, don't put Christ to the test, and now don't grumble.
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See if you can pick them up in 1 Corinthians 10, 6 through 10. Now, these things took place as examples for us.
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When you read the Old Testament, for instance, we're supposed to see Christ in the Old Testament, but that's not the only thing we're supposed to see.
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Here, we're supposed to see things as examples, that we might not desire evil as they did.
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Well, what kind of evil would that be? Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written.
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The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Secondly, we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did.
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23 ,000 fell in a single day. Thirdly, we saw last week, we must not put
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Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents. And now the fourth exhortation,
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Paul gives to Corinth and therefore I give to you. Nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.
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If I had to ask you the question, what passage do you think Paul is referring to?
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I think I'd get lots of different answers. Or I could say it this way. Are there a lot of passages in the
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Old Testament that talk about Israel grumbling? A lot.
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Grumble, mumble, stumble through the wilderness is what they were doing. I found a website this week and it was called
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Weird Deaths. The list of unusual deaths. And you can look through that if you'd like sometimes.
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Strange way people have died. Maybe eating worms out of a peanut butter cup. I don't know,
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I didn't get that far down to the W. But what they didn't have in there was this weird way.
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Because of the grumbling against the providence and the goodness of God giving them the leaders like Moses and Aaron, God killed people by having the ground open up like a huge mouth.
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And then the huge mouth of the ground just wolfed the people down. That's an unusual death.
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And that's exactly what Paul is talking about here in verse 10. Let's look at the text, then we'll look at the
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Old Testament passage, then we'll see some final exhortations. Look at the text in verse 10.
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Nor grumble. There's a variety of words for grumble in the
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New Testament and Old. And this word here in particular, grumble in your ESV is from the
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Greek word that you've heard me say many times, gungismus, gungismus.
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And what gungismus means is this. It means that you're expressing yourself in kind of low tones that are almost not audible, that you can hear somebody over there and they're just kind of gungismus, gungismus.
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And you could probably see their countenance and you can just hear this tone. You can't really distinguish what they're saying, but you know it's a murmur.
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The lexicon calls it a low tone of disapprobation. I like murmur better.
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Ever do that? Just kind of under your breath, but loud enough for other people to hear you're kind of expressing yourself with displeasure.
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You don't like the situation. It's audible. And here's the bad news.
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It's against God. That's Paul's point. It's against God. It's the sin really of all sins.
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It goes back to the sin of all sins, that is unbelief. Grumbling against God.
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Paul, you're too hard on us. We can't go to these feasts. We don't think there's any idols in the meat.
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We just want to go to the feast. Paul says, no, you've got to run from idolatry. And you can just hear the response of the
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Corinthians with murmuring and gungismus. And if you say gungismus a certain way, you can make it sound like what it is.
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It's a word that sounds like what it is. Gungismus, gungismus, gungismus.
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Is that you? Is that how you've been around the church, around other people? People just don't measure up.
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At the end of the day, it's no faith in God for choosing who He's chosen. And it's a prideful thing because you think everybody should measure up to, of course, your standards.
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Gungismus. Somebody's listening.
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Now, the good news, I'm just preaching verse by verse. The good news is I haven't heard much of this, but I might as well make sure we talk frankly as a family.
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Two services, 53 acres of land and nothing to show for it.
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No, I'm just kidding. No building. There's plenty to show for it. Scott Goddard, please forgive me. But whatever our minds think, you know what?
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If I was a leader, I'd do something a lot differently. Complaining against God's divinely appointed leadership means you aren't trusting in God.
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You're trusting in God and His sovereignty who rules over all. Now, I don't think I'm John MacArthur, but I know for a fact that God has placed me here and that I'm in fact your leader.
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I have a long way to go. I hope you pray for me. But submission, friends, and those in the military know this and those in business know this, means you go along even if you disagree.
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So you disagree with leadership and you have options of, God, I'm thankful it's not chaos here and anarchy.
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God, you're sovereign enough. Can you imagine God's sovereign enough to overturn the elders of Bethlehem Bible Church?
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Or the response is, we complain. And for Israel, they complained and they complained and they complained.
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It was a song of refrain for them. I won't read you all of them. I have them all listed here.
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But you can just kind of get how bad, when I hear complaining to others, I think that's horrible. And I think, yeah,
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I do that too. All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness by stages according to the commandment of the
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Lord. There was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, give us water to drink.
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The people thirsted there for water and the people grumbled against Moses. In numbers it said, and the people complained in the hearing of the
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Lord about their misfortunes. And when the Lord heard it, what do you think the Lord said? I understand that.
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And the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp.
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Then the people cried out to Moses. But look at the text here in 1
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Corinthians 10. Out of all the passages in the Old Testament in Numbers and Exodus and the wilderness complaining, there's nothing about the destroyer.
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And if you take a look at your text in the ESV, it's the destroyer, not just a destroyer, but the destroyer.
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Now you might think that's Satan, but this isn't Satan. This is the destroying angel sent by God for judgment.
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This is the destroying angel that comes and says, God, you sent me on a mission to destroy,
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I'm going to destroy. This is the angel that came to destroy those firstborns in the
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Passover who didn't have the blood over the lentil. This is the destroyer that went and destroyed people after David counted the census.
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This is the destroyer that the Lord sent who killed 188 ,000
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Assyrians. And this is the angel that killed the Israelites in the wilderness for complaining.
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Let's turn our Bibles to Numbers chapter 16 and take a look at this account. It doesn't talk about the destroyer, but now we learn from Paul in added revelation, in progressive revelation, who actually did this.
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Numbers chapter 16. I've been loving to go through these Old Testament passages.
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Exodus 32 and Numbers to see Phinehas and to see the snakes.
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Here we're going to see the passage that Paul refers to. And if you're a Corinthian, Paul says this verse in chapter 10, verse 10, you go,
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I got it down. We don't really have it down like Paul did. And so we're going to work our way through number 16 so you can see the clear reference that Paul is referring to.
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This is the sin of Korah, going against divinely ordained leaders and complaining.
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You know what I could call this chapter? The church split chapter. This is the church split chapter.
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You're going to read through this and if you've gone through a church split, you'll go, oh, I recognize that. If you've gone through a church split, you're going to say this, not pity the people who were left to do the cleanup, but I pity the people who were antagonistically involved in the church split.
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God have mercy on them. God have mercy on their souls because God is very, very clear here that this is a heinous sin.
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Now Korah, numbers 16, I'm reading the ESV, the son of Ishar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, Dathan, and Abiram, and the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Paleth, the sons of Reuben, took men.
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So here Korah, the Levite, he's not a priest, but of the Kohath clan, camping near the
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Reubenites with Dathan, Abiram, and On. They get together and they have different agendas.
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They don't like different things, but they have a common cause. We don't like leadership. They're rebels.
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They're rebellious, faction -oriented people. They don't even really like each other.
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They're like the Sanhedrin, and the Pharisees, and the scribes. They don't like each other, but they hate Jesus, so let's join together.
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So they're united in the opposition of Moses, and what do they do? You can feel this tension build in chapter 16, verse two, and they rose up before Moses with a number of people of Israel.
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There's three different ways you can see how preeminent these people are. 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, and men of a name, literally.
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They had well -known names. They were prominent men, and what did they do? They do what all people do at church splits.
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They go for the lowest common denominator general complaints. The general complaining.
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Let's not go for specifics because we can't get as many people. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, you have gone too far, for all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the
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Lord is among them. Why do you exalt yourself above the assembly of Yahweh?
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It's a broad sweep. It's the sweep that happened 10 years ago, 11 years ago here, where people call someone, and they say to the person, you know, do you have anything against Mike?
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Yeah, we do. Gather that, let's get ready for the big split. That's the exact kind of thing right here.
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Broad sweep, no specifics. Moses, you're exalting yourself, and you know, we should be exalted too.
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We were taken through the Red Sea like you. Who do you think you are? But this isn't just against Moses, this is against God, and God's sovereign choice of leaders.
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Moses, you heard of it, verse 4, he fell on his face and said to Cornel, the company of his men, in the morning the
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Lord will show who is His and who is holy and will bring Him near to Him, and who will do that? The one whom
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He chooses, He will bring near to Him. In other words, you don't understand sovereignty. You don't get it at all.
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And sovereignty says, I pick the Levites only to serve me in a certain function, I pick the apostles a certain way,
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I pick Israel, and God is a God who chooses, and He chooses certain leaders, and we'll see who He chooses tomorrow, all right.
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God will vindicate. Do this, verse 6, take censers, corn, and all his company, put them in the fire, put incense on them before the
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Lord tomorrow, and the man whom the Lord chooses, the sovereignty of God over everything, shall be the
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Holy One. See, they're trying to pick themselves. We'll see who God picks. You have gone too far, sons of Levi.
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That's exactly what they said to Moses and Aaron in verse 3. You've gone too far. No, you've gone too far. It all goes back to the sovereignty of God.
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Verse 8, Moses said to Korah, Hear now, you sons of Levi, is it a small thing for you that the
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God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel to bring you near to Himself to do service in the tabernacle?
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They could serve the tabernacle, but now they wanna be priests. It's not good enough to be a deacon. I gotta be an elder.
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It's not good enough to put the chairs away. I've gotta be this. It's not good enough to serve the temple. All these people of the
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Israelites, none of them could serve the temple except this tribe, but now that's not enough. Verse 10,
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And that He has brought you near Him and all your brothers, the sons of Levi, with you, and you would seek the priesthood also.
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It's not enough to serve the tabernacle. You gotta be the priest. Therefore, it is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered against Him.
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What is Aaron that you grumble against him? You're so privileged. This is not insignificant what
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God has done. And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram and the sons of Iliah.
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Verse 12, And they said, We will not come up. Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness that you must also make yourself a prince over us?
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Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us the inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put out the eyes of these men?
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We will not come up. Put out the eyes is a metaphor to pull the wool over someone, to hoodwink them.
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This doesn't really mean to jab out their eyes. You're gonna pull the wool over their eyes too. No, no, I don't think so.
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Not to us you're not. Verse 15, And Moses was very angry and said to the Lord, he's not even talking to these people now.
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He goes straight to the Lord. Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them and I have not harmed one of them.
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I'm not misusing my office. I'm not in it for the money. I'm not trying to be rich and famous. I didn't make myself this.
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You made me this, this position. Moses, the meek man, the kind man, the man who falls on his face often, leaves vindication to God, said to Korah.
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Verse 16, Be present you and all your company before the Lord, you and they and Aaron tomorrow. And let every one of you take his censer and put incense on it.
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You really want to go and be priests? Okay. And every one of you bring before the Lord his censer, 250 censers, you also and Aaron, each a censer.
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So every man took a censer and put fire in them and laid incense on them and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron. And Moses assembled all the congregation, excuse me,
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Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting and the glory of the
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Lord appeared to all the congregation. Note to self, don't be an evil ring leader.
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Note to self, don't mess with God's people. What people thought, at least in our church split 11 years ago, that you know what, let's hurt
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Mike. But what they forgot is when you touch God's people, when you touch the church,
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God is displeased. It's not the issue. By the way, I didn't save any of you.
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I didn't give you any spiritual gifts. I'm a nobody. But the body of Christ is everything to Christ Jesus.
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Everything. Mark it down in your minds. I will never ever cause division or dissension in the church.
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There's nothing worse. There's absolutely nothing more heinous for a person to do.
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And it's not against a person. It's not against the elder board. It's not against the pastors. It's not against the pastor. It's against God almighty.
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By the way, when you hear people in the church complain, and of course we are fallen people, then you need to make sure you don't accept that.
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When someone calls you and says, you know, I got a problem with Mike, do you? No, I have a problem with you.
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And I'm calling Mike right now. I don't think they'll call you again with a problem. You say, yeah, but this is so self -serving.
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No, because this isn't my church. This church either rises or falls based on the good pleasure of her
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King, Christ Jesus. And this is obviously what the text says. And the Lord hates division.
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Six things the Lord hates, yes, even seven. And what's the most heinous thing the Lord hates in Proverbs 6 is what?
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Those who cause strife and stir up division. What happens?
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Verse 20, And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying, separate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment.
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They fell on their faces and said, Oh God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, mark that down.
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When's God ever called that? Why has God called that? Oh God, the God of spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin and you will be angry with all the congregation?
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God says to Moses, get away. This is light fuse, lay on ground and run.
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How far do you get away is what I would be thinking. If I was standing there and I was a young lad standing next to my dad,
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I'd be saying, dad, is this far enough? We need to get farther away. Get away, distance yourself.
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The literal Hebrew is go up from around. Now, why is God called this here? Oh God, the
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God of spirits or the God of the breath of all flesh. Here's the emphasis.
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The emphasis is God has the right to kill people. God has the sovereign right to kill anybody
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He wants. God has the right to create and God has the right to kill. This is a language that is trying to emphasize
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God's sovereign over everything. And so you better get away. And when God does something, you ought to say that's perfectly within God's rights to do.
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It's God's role of creator, sovereign over everything. It's His right to decide life and death issues.
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You can feel the suspense is building here. And the
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Lord spoke to Moses saying, say to the congregation, get away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathom and Abiram.
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It's gonna happen. It's gonna be public. It's gonna be dramatic. Get away, run.
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These mutinous rebels are gonna be swept away with the avalanche of God's wrath.
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Then Moses rose and went to Dathom and Abiram and the elders of Israel followed him. And he spoke to the congregation saying, depart please from the tents of these wicked men.
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Touch nothing of theirs lest you be swept away with all their sins, with this wrath of God like a tsunami.
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So they got away from the building of Korah, Dathom and Abiram. And Dathom and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents, surely with pride, together with their wives, their sons, and their little ones.
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Moses said, hereby you shall know that Yahweh has sent me to do all these works.
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You'll know why I'm now God's ordained leader. And it has not been of my own accord.
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I didn't make myself a leader. If these men die, as all men die, they just get old or having some accident, or if they're visited by a fate of all mankind, then the
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Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new and the ground opens up its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and the little ones too, they will go down alive into Sheol.
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Then you will know that these men have despised the Lord. Gulp, earth swallowing up.
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Flood, no, earth swallowing people up. As soon as he had finished speaking.
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That's pretty lucky. By the way, you should read what some of the liberals say.
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There's a special kind of ground and rivers used to travel over it, and it's kind of not very stable.
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And once in a while, you'd have a tent there and it would fall down into the deal and it'd kind of open up a little bit and there'd be a crack or a crevice, or it's kind of like the
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San Andreas Fault in California. Don't live too close to Fresno, you're gonna fall in. All this kind of stuff.
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Remember, this is like some of the plagues. They happened to the
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Egyptians, but not the Israelites who were right there. Here, get away and it's going to be a divine, supernatural miracle of destruction and it's only going to happen to the bad people.
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And as soon as they had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. I don't know if you've ever heard an earthquake, but it's loud.
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Who's heard an earthquake? You're feeling it, you're hearing it. It's loud, super loud. And the earth opened up its mouth.
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You just see the earth personified. This is like some huge alligator, right? The alligator of God comes and just crunches, split apart.
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And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up and their households and all the people who belong to Korah and all their goods, and not the
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Israelites. That's why I fear for the ringleaders of church splits and divisive people.
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They might live in luxury for a long time, but they'll be payday one day. So they and all that belong to them went down alive into Sheol.
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Not down into hell, but down into death. Down they go to the journey of the center of the earth.
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And you want to know how the miracle kept going? I would think that if it was an earthquake, it would all open up, they'd all fall in.
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Now it opens up, it scarfs them down, and then now what? It closes its mouth, as it were.
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And the earth closed over them and they perished from the midst of the assembly. And now it's just nothing but dust, quiet, and people probably thinking, what's happened?
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One of the side benefits to this kind of death is there's going to be no grave marker for such ringleaders.
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Where are we going to put the grave markers? And many times the
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Hebrew says, this is going to be a place called such and such because something happened there. This place isn't called anything, it's the no -name site because it's just the earthquake mouth of the earth opening up site.
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And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry. They were crying as they went down.
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Lest the earth swallow us up. And for an exclamation point, for divine punctuation with emphasis, there are people not standing by Korah and the tent with the little ones.
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And the fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men offering the incense.
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Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, tell Eliezer, the son of Aaron, the priest, to take up the censers out of the blaze.
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And so they did all that. And then it says in verse 41, and now we come to the passage.
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Well, how does 1 Corinthians 10 fit in? Here's how it fits in. This is the passage. You want to underline verse 41.
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But on the next day, all the congregation of the people of Israel, what? I mean, after that, can you imagine?
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You've just seen the earthquake of all earthquakes. What's the biggest Richter scale number we have in earthquakes?
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I should have typed it into Google. What's the biggest Richter scale? 10, is that it? I don't believe it.
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Whatever the number is, I believe Charlie, but I want the number to be bigger is what I'm trying to tell you. On the next day,
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I mean, think about how the language of the Hebrew is. And immediately this happens. As soon as Moses got done talking, this happens.
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And then now it says, but on the next day, all the congregation of Israel, what? Here we have
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Korah and then the Reubenites, they get together, they grumble, they grumble, they grumble. And what do you think happens?
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Well, what happens is a new thing. God opens up the maw of the earth and kills them all. What happens the next day? You know what
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I would want to do, at least in my mind? Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
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I'd be singing something. I didn't be singing bad praise songs, anything. And they grumbled, the same thing's happening against Moses and against Aaron, which is really against God.
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And what do they say? Who can make this up? You have killed the people of the
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Lord. Oh, Moses, you did that. That's the old open up the maw of the earth trick. You did it.
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Moses, just before falling on his face, just interceding, doing things that I don't think I would ever do, was the
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Spirit of God was working in me against Yahweh. And when the congregation had assembled against Moses, I would be saying to myself as I was going there,
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I'm next, the maw of God is next for me. That's what I would be thinking. But complaining is so bad, it's infectious.
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They turned toward the tent of meeting and behold, the cloud covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared. How bad is the gravity of rebellion against God's ordained leaders?
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And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, get away from the midst of his congregation that I may consume them in a minute.
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It's coming again. This is the sequel. And they fell on their faces.
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And now we have another key. Key is verse 46. And Moses said,
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Aaron, take your censer, put a fire on it from the altar, lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them.
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For the wrath has gone out from the Lord. The plague has begun. So Aaron took it as Moses said and ran in the midst of the assembly.
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Behold, the plague had already begun among the people. And he put on the incense and made atonement for the people.
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He stood between the dead and the living and the plague stopped. Now those who died in the plague were 14 ,700, by the way, killed by the destroyer of God.
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Besides those who died in the affair of Korah, the 250 and the family and the little ones.
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And Aaron returned to Moses at the end of the tent of meeting and the plague was stopped. Wow. What's the moral of the story?
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Pretty easy. Be a sacrificial giver. No, that isn't the moral.
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What's the moral? The general moral is any complaint against God is a complaint against his divine sovereignty.
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I don't like the weather. Well, God made the weather. Don't complain about the weather because that's the weather from God.
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I don't like the people who you saved and brought to this local fellowship. I don't like the people who you saved and brought to this fellowship to make us make them over shepherds, under shepherds.
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And I can say with all honesty, no one knows me before I was saved here except Kim, but this was the last thing
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I was looking for in my life. I don't mean West Boylston, Massachusetts, New England. I just mean leadership.
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I didn't want to lead anyone. I want behind the... You can all say, yeah, sure, this is what you just say. It's true.
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I want behind the scenes. I don't want to talk. I don't want to speak. I'm the guy who said to myself, there are 101 credit hours at seminary.
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I will take 97 of them and quit when it comes to preaching because I don't want to preach. I want to learn the
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Bible for myself and that's it. God made me a Christian. God made me a teacher and God made me your pastor.
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And I want you to pray for me. This is not look who I am. When you spend time with me, you'll realize, you know what?
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He's a sinner saved by grace just like everyone else. But if we're supposed to submit to President Obama, and I don't think he shows any fruit of being a
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Christian, and we're supposed to submit, how? Because God's sovereign and God can overrule and underwrite and do all kinds of other things.
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And so we submit and we go. If Peter can say, God, Nero's the king, I submit, then how much more can we submit to leaders who are
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Christians and who by the grace of God faithfully proclaim the truth?
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I'm not the Messiah. I'm not your Savior. But I've been told by the Savior through His Word to preach the
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Word of God to you. I don't know what else to do. If Jesus isn't enough for you, I don't know what to tell you at this church.
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I have nothing else to offer you. Times come and times go. Some people like to complain.
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Some people don't. I just know in my own heart, I don't want to complain.
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And I don't want to complain by saying, God, this church that You gave me. Because it could happen the other way around.
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Why aren't there more leaders? Why aren't there more elders? Why aren't there better givers? Why aren't there this, that, or the other?
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I so far want to run from that. God builds His church, and I'm not going to be in competition with Him.
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And so if we're all focused on who God is and His kingdom, then we can rally around one another and say, you know what,
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I'm a sinner saved by grace. So are you. My focus has always been, let's highlight people's strengths, not weaknesses, because we all have them.
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We're all here together. I have weaknesses. My wife has strengths. I compliment those. She has a lot of strengths.
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I have a lot of weaknesses. She covers those. That's just the way a marriage works, and that's the way the body works. And so I think this is good for us as a church.
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Two services. What about this? What about that? I have the most opportunity to complain of anybody in the church, because I know more scoop.
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But I've just determined, not that it's scoop, that sounds wrong. But I know more things to complain about, but I refuse, at least in my mind when
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I'm thinking rightly, to do that very thing. Why? Because the glory of Christ should magnify and eclipse and take over everything.
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This is not the house that I'm building. If this was the house that I was building, you would say a completely different deal.
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Turn with me if you would. We've got a few minutes to go. Turn to James 5, and I want to show you one other passage about complaining.
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And then we need to celebrate together that we have a God who has forgiven our complaining, who has forgiven our grumbling, because of His Son's great life.
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I'm going to talk about that in just a minute, but I want to show you James 5. If you've got a problem with leadership, go to leadership.
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If you've got a problem with leadership, pray for leadership. James 5 is really a neat passage that doesn't talk about leadership, but it just talks about general things.
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I'm going to read from the NAS here. James 5 just talks about a good mindset that will help you not to complain, and that is
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Jesus is coming back. How'd you like to be in the middle of a sentence complaining against someone when
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Jesus returns? Look at what James says, Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the
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Lord. Behold, the farmer waits with precious James 5 .7 for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets the early and late rains.
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Farmers have to be patient. We want to be patient. We're doing what we can, clearing the land and sowing the seeds, but we know
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God's going to come back soon. Strengthen your hearts, it says in verse 8, for the coming of the
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Lord is at hand. Put some iron into your hearts. Be stout -hearted. As Jesus set
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His face to go to Jerusalem, same word, let's be stout -hearted. And then it comes to chapter 5, verse 9.
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I'll read the ESV. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
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Behold, the judge is standing at the door. That's kind of eerily similar to the language in 1
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Corinthians and the thought of Numbers 16. We live in a complaining culture.
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And here the complaint is what? Not against leaders, although that could be included, but against one another.
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This is the kind of groan in Greek that has no words to it.
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1 Corinthians 10, that was a groan of, I can't believe they did that. I'm just mind boggled by that.
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I can't believe the leadership made that decision. This word is against other people.
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Oh! No words. It's just this groan. You can feel the air come out of your lungs.
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It's a sigh. Oh, I'm so dissatisfied in what that person has done.
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Oh! It's horrible. You irritate me. Oh! By the way, this is why
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I never wanted to be a pastor because I would have to do things like I'm doing right now. Oh! You get on my nerves.
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And it's a present imperative. Don't ever, if you're in to do it, stop. Don't ever complain.
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Stop it. And by the way, we really know how to do this in a proper way, and we kind of do it through a prayer channel.
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Please pray for me that I might be patient with my wife.
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Translation, my wife's off the deep end. Please pray that I might be patient with her. I guess
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I owe her a dollar. We live in difficult times, trying times.
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But God is the King. God is still sovereign. Say, well, I believe in the sovereignty of God. Really?
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Then if you do, not only will you be humble and trust in God, but you won't be complaining. You'll be giving
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Him thanks. Thank you, God. If God can grow this church and raise up this church,
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I mean in maturity, with us as leaders, He can do anything He wants, can't He? That's what we're thinking.
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This is horrible for unity. It feeds on itself. The focus is against other people, not who God is.
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God, you know, here's what we're saying. God, you're not sanctifying that person fast enough.
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Can you imagine? God could sanctify my wife faster than He's sanctifying her. Kim could be more godly than she is.
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I don't know anybody more godly than my wife. The last person
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I knew who was more godly than my wife was Kim's grandmother who just died. And I think, you know what?
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But there are times I think, I wish Kim would be a little more godly when I want my way, especially. I'm saying, you know what?
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I shouldn't be complaining because it's a complaint against God, just like a complaint against Moses is a complaint against God. God, you're just not progressively sanctifying them yet.
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Yeah, but God, I've got an unbelieving spouse. What's going on? Well, you know what that is,
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God? I don't like your timing and you haven't saved my spouse yet and I don't like that. We should just go back to thinking what we deserve and what
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God has given us. The gulf should cause us to be joyful. And look at this passage in James 5.
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Behold, the judge is standing right at the door. The heavenly judge is standing at the door.
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Lord Jesus, standing right there. I remember when the kids were little and we lived in Sterling, I would just stand at the door of their room and they would be playing.
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And then they would do something wrong and then when they did something wrong, they're like, I'm gonna just check to see if Dad's here.
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And there I was. You ever do something wrong and your conscience gets you and you just go, wow, the judge is standing at the door.
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Here comes the judge. I wish my pastor wouldn't give pop culture references.
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Don't complain. It's comforting that the judge is right by the door in one sense.
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He's close. But it's the judge who's at the door, standing right at the door.
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We ought not do that. So then, my beloved, just as you have always also obeyed, not in my presence also, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
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For it is God who is at work within you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing.
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I leave you with these words. Listen to the words written by Peter about Jesus, who never complained, who never grumbled, who never sinned with his lips.
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He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.
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When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to Him who judges justly.
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He Himself bore our sins on His body, on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
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By His wounds, you have been healed. For you were strained like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.
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No wonder the verse before that says, for to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in His steps.
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Following Christ's example by not sinning with our mouths, by not complaining. Can you imagine
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Jesus would have complained one time? He could not have been the Son of God. He could not have atoned for our sins. But since Jesus never did complain, every sin that we've ever committed, like complaining, placed on Christ, He bore it on His body, on the tree, by sovereign decree.
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He did that for us. And then Christ's lack of reviling, lack of complaining, lack of thankfulness, lack of submission, all placed on...
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I've got to get my imputation right. Christ's lack of rebellion.
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Where am I? I don't even know what I'm talking about. Christ never rebelled. We are in Christ.
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We are seen like we've never been rebellious. Christ never sinned with His mouth. We are seen like we've never sinned with our mouth because of what
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Christ has done. So I think this is a perfect time for us to celebrate the
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Lord's Supper, to be reminded that Jesus Christ forgives every sin, including complaining.
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Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word today. We're thankful that because of Your good pleasure, we have not been swallowed alive, as it were, like Korah.
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Yet You have showered us with blessings. We have so many blessings here at the church and in our own lives.
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Help us to be grateful people. Help us to be thankful people. I pray that the church might grow in maturation.
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I pray that we as leaders might have the Word of Christ dwell in us richly so that we could be better leaders.
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And help us, Father, to remember that we're all about Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.