1.
Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock
and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this morning, the
3rd Sunday in Lent is taken from 1 Cor. 10:1-13 and is entitled, “God is Faithful,” dear brothers and
sisters in Christ.
2.
Some
people find history interesting, but there are many people think it’s just
plain boring. “Why do I have to learn all
of these dates?” the teenager complains to her parents. “This is just old stuff that nobody cares
about any more,” another child says to his history teacher. “What’s it got to do with me today?” The famous Harvard philosophy professor
George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” History can teach us where
other people have made mistakes and sinned as they met the challenges of life. If
we fail to learn from their examples, we too may fall into sin when circumstances
present us with similar challenges. The
Apostle Paul judged that the history of Israel provided many important lessons
for us as the Christian church. In 1 Cor. 10 he calls the church’s attention to
Israel’s wilderness wanderings in the days of Moses. Paul warned that the Corinthian church risked
repeating Israel’s idolatries. In the
midst of our sin and unfaithfulness to God we as Christians find that God is
faithful to us in His Son Jesus Christ.
3.
Like
the children of Israel 1000 years before, the Corinthian Christians were a
privileged people. But, like the children of Israel, they were taking God’s
grace lightly. Both of Paul’s letters to that church show one unhappy sin after
another: adultery, incest, drunkenness, lawsuits, choosing favorites among
their pastors, and a whole parade of foolishness. Far too often, that church
was living as though the grace of God had never visited the lives of its
members. Paul used Israel’s history to instruct and to warn these Corinthian
Christians.
4.
1
Corinthians 10:1-2 says, “1I
want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all
passed through the sea, 2and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in
the sea.” In calling God’s
chosen people “our forefathers,” he connects the Israelites with the New
Testament Church. Both are God’s chosen people. Both are recipients of God’s
grace. What a privileged group of people
it was that marched out of Egypt in the middle of the night. Who else but Israel had seen the Lord of the
universe blazing a trail for them through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud
by day and a pillar of fire by night? Who else but Israel had walked through
the center of the Red Sea on dry ground? These two things were a special kind
of baptism for Israel. Every Israelite who went through that dramatic baptism
had a reason to think: “I must be one of
God’s people!” Like those Israelites of old, all of us Christians are
privileged people—people touched by the grace of God, people who have received
a baptism in which God brought forgiveness and adoption into our lives. The
passage through the Red Sea bound God’s people to their leader, Moses, whom God
sent to lead them to safety. We were baptized into the name of our leader,
Jesus Christ, and are bound to him.
5.
1
Corinthians 10:3-4 says, “3and all ate the same
spiritual food, 4and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from
the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” The spiritual food the Israelites ate
was manna. The spiritual drink was the water that flowed from the rock Moses
struck at Kadesh (Nu 20). The food and drink are called spiritual because they were miraculously provided. Like those
Israelites, we too have the privilege of eating and drinking spiritual food—the
body and blood that Jesus offered up and poured out to put us into His family.
We too are people whose needs for time and eternity have been supplied by a
merciful Savior. God is faithful to us!
6.
1
Corinthians 10:5 says, “5Nevertheless, with most of them God was not
pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” What a sad statement. Out of about
600,000 men 20 years and older who left Egypt, only 2, Joshua and Caleb, lived
to enter the Promised Land. Why? Israel took God’s grace lightly. They found
their security in their own history, not in the God who stood behind that
history. With that kind of sinful self-confidence, Israel developed an
unfaithfulness toward God which took for granted all He’d done for them and
said to them. That unfaithfulness stuck out like a sore thumb in some things
the children of Israel did before they ever reached the land of Canaan.
7.
1 Corinthians 10:6-10
says, “6Now these things took place as
examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7Do 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.” 8We must not indulge in sexual immorality as
some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9We must not
put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents,
10nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.” Notice that Israel committed the same sins
that the Corinthians were guilty. It’s even more significant for us to note
that Israel committed the same sins we as Christians today are still falling
into. That’s why Paul gives us these warning examples from Israel’s history—to
keep us from setting our hearts on evil things!
8.
The
first warning from Israel’s history is its worship of the golden calf. Paul
paints a picture of God’s people having a good time. The children of Israel
tired of waiting for Moses to come down from Mt. Sinai. So they made a golden
calf and devised their own kind of worship. It consisted in dancing and living
it up. Paul says: “Do not be idolaters,
as some of them were.” The worship of the golden calf still goes on today.
How easy it is for us to get tired of waiting for Jesus to come again. Is any
pagan revelry ever involved when it comes to our attraction to and love for
many of the things of this world? The
second warning example from Israel’s history involves sexual immorality. Paul
refers to the time when the men of Israel went over the border and enjoyed the
sexual favors of the Moabite women (Nu 25). For this sin, God commanded Moses
to kill 23,000 of these men in one day. History does repeat itself. With all
the living together before marriage today, divorce, homosexuality, and pornography
so readily available in our society, do we as Christians today take to heart
God’s 6th commandment not to commit adultery? Are you remembering
God’s Word that says your body is a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit (1 Co
6:19, 20)? The third and fourth warning
involves Israel’s complaining and groaning against the Lord. Israel was never
satisfied. They challenged God and put His patience and faithfulness to the
test (Nu 21). They murmured about Moses’ leadership and God’s dealings with
them (Nu 14 and Nu 16). To deal with his complaining people God punished
them—first with snakes and then by opening up the earth which swallowed them. Showing
thanklessness for all the Lord does for you, complaining about your situation
in life, rebelling against your Pastor and teachers in the church—how many
times do you put Jesus to the test?
9.
1 Cor. 10:11-13 says, “11Now 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. 12Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest
he fall. 13No temptation has overtaken
you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be
tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the
way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” God had Moses record Israel’s sins so
that they would serve as warning examples for all those who would come after
them. For us as Christians today, if we don’t learn from the past history of
God’s people, then we are prideful fools!
To look at all these warnings and say, “That couldn’t happen to me!” is dangerous. If we think we don’t
have these weaknesses, that’s proof that we do. When we stop being repentant,
we stop being children of God. When we elevate ourselves above others because
we haven’t murdered or stolen or fornicated, when we think we don’t need to be
involved in Church or go to Worship, or that we don’t need to learn anymore
about God, then we’re ready to be punished like Israel. Paul tells all
Christians that if we think we can stand before God with what we are, we will
fall from faith.
10.
The Lord’s Prayer
Jesus says that we should ask God not to “lead us into temptation, but deliver
us from evil” (Matt. 6:13). “Evil” is
better translated “the evil one,” referring to Satan. In other words we should
pray that God will not allow tests to become temptations, in the sense of
inducement to evil. The idea is, Lord, stop us before Satan can turn your test
into his temptation.” Dr. Hutton has
said: “God always makes a way of escape
and sometimes the way of escape is the king’s highway and a good pair of shoes.”
In other words, let the Devil see your shoes—run as hard as you can to get away
from the temptation. One of the reasons we yield to temptation is that we’re
like the little boy in the pantry. His mother heard a noise because he had
taken down the cookie jar. She said, “Willie, where are you?” He answered that
he was in the pantry. “What are you doing there?” He said, “I’m fighting
temptation.” Dear friends, that’s
not the place to fight temptation! That’s the place to start running.
11.
Paul
turns from the unfaithfulness of Israel to the faithfulness of Israel’s God.
Time and time again in the Old Testament, Israel sinned against God. But
because of His faithfulness to a promise, God forgave. Even though a generation
of Old Testament Israel did die with their bodies scattered over the desert,
God was faithful and gave His people the Promised Land and the Promised Savior.
12.
Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ, God is faithful! That’s the gospel message of
this last verse. Every time we were forgiven, it was our faithful God who
forgave us. Every time we did what was right, it was our faithful God who gave
us the power. Every time we resisted temptation, it was our faithful God who
provided the way out. God has dressed us in the purity of His own Son and
through Him gives us the one and only way to escape those same old sins
committed by Israel. Amen.
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