Good morning. Let's open this
morning's worship with hymn number 44. Hymn number 44. And let's all stand together.
Number 44. Rest in Peace He left his house Oh Please be seated. Good morning. Let's get our hymnals
back out to number 44 if you will please. Number 44. I think that some of our hymnals
haven't been fixed. The second stanza, the third
line down, has the word Adam's helpless race. If you have a
pen or you can borrow one from your neighbor and it hasn't been
scratched out, scratch out the word Adam's and put his own in
place of Adam's. Christ did not die for Adam's
helpless race. He died for his own helpless
race. And that's a huge difference.
Huge difference. It's the difference between the
gospel of the accomplished work of Christ and a gospel that leaves
the sons of Adam something left to do. So, and check the hymnals
around you, if you will, please, and make that change. Okay? Adam's to his own. All right. This coming Wednesday, Todd Nybert
is having some surgery on the vertebrae in his neck to relieve
a pinched nerve and they're having to go in through the front. They're
going to have to manipulate his vocal cords and It's pretty serious
surgery, so I want us to pray for him. And as the Lord enables
you to remember him this week, to pray for that surgery to be
successful. And while we're talking about
Todd, if you want to hear as clear a gospel message as I've
ever heard, Go online and listen to the one that he preached last
Sunday morning. The title of the message is The
Difference Between... Say it again, Bert, louder. Sorry,
I can't hear you. How works differs from grace. Or how grace and works differ,
something to that effect. Last Sunday morning, at Todd's
Road Grace Church. It'd be a great message if you've
been trying to explain the gospel to a loved one, a family member,
a friend, a co-worker. It would be a great message for
you to share with somebody that you want to hear the gospel because
it answers all the questions of the religionist. Alright,
let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
that you've once again called us here to this place
that you've promised, Lord, your presence, that you've given us
your word, that you've told us, Lord, that if we ask you for
your spirit, that you would bless us with the understanding and
with truth and light and with the revelation of thy dear son.
Father, that's what we're in need of this morning. We come
before You as sinners, completely dependent upon You to have mercy
upon us. We ask now that You would bless
Your Word, that You would cause us to set our hearts, our affections,
our thoughts on the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we do pray for
our brother Todd. We thank you for him. And we
ask, Lord, that you would be pleased to make the surgery Wednesday
successful and give him some relief and give him a quick and
full recovery. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. If you'd like to open your Bibles
with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, 1 Corinthians chapter 10,
there's a verse of Scripture here that you've heard me quote
many times over the years, and one that inspired a question
this week from a friend in another place who wrote me and said that
they were trying to answer the question that a person had about
how it is that God would never put on anyone more than they
could bear. That's the platitude. That's
what men think. It should not surprise us that
men would pull out of God's Word a portion of a verse and twist
it or rest it, as the scripture says, to make a conclusion that
is contrary to everything that that verse has to say. How many
times have you heard someone say, God won't put more on you
than you can bear? It's a lie. It's a lie. It's
just simply not true. It's no different than the pop
song, I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky.
If I can just believe it, then I can see it. That line in that
pop song needs to be changed to what I believe is not true. But that's the way men think.
It's just the power of positive thinking. God's not going to
put more on me than I can bear. I can somehow find the strength
to handle whatever circumstances God brings my way. The truth is that all of life
is more than you and I can bear. And that we have not yet come to understand
how dependent we are on God's grace to deal with not just the
providential temporal circumstances of life, but most importantly,
to deal with that problem that never goes away. the problem
of our sin. What are we going to do? How
are we going to bear the weight of our sin before God? This verse
in 1 Corinthians 10, 13 says, There hath no temptation taken
you, but such as is common to man. All of us, every single one of
us, face temptations every day. What is a temptation? What is
a temptation? It's anything that distracts
our attention from the Lord Jesus Christ. It's anything that lessens
our dependence upon Him. You have that problem? I've got
that problem. There hath no temptation taken
you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful. God is faithful in the midst
of our trials, in the midst of our sin, in the midst of our
temptations. God is faithful and will not
suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but
will with the temptation provide a way of escape that you might
be able to bear it. Now that's the point of that
verse. Not that God's not going to put more on you than you can
bear, but that in the troubles and trials of life, He has provided
a way of escape. What is that way of escape? Who
is that way of escape? The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
am the way. Not, I'll show you the way. Not,
I'll help you along the way. He said, I am the way. I am the
truth. I am the life. No man can come
to the Father but by me. Now that's what you and I need.
We need to come to God. In the midst of our temptations,
we need to come to God. And the only way we can get to
Him is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the way of
escape. And all these trials and troubles
and temptations that we experience in this life are in order to
show us our need for that way of escape. Do you need to escape? Alright, let's look at the verse,
we just quoted verse 13, look at the verse before that. Wherefore,
let him that thinketh that he standeth take heed, lest he fall. See, the person who says, God
won't put more on you than you can bear, has not only perverted
verse 13, but they've completely missed verse 12. Because that's
a person who thinks, you know, I can bear it. There's nothing
in life beyond my ability to bear. God's going to see to it.
And I'm going to be okay. Let him that thinketh that he
standeth take heed lest he fall. That's all that is. It's just
self-confidence and it will end in a great fall. It'll end in a great fall. To understand these two verses,
it would be good for us to go back to verse 1 in chapter 10,
because the Lord is going to use the example of the children
of Israel wandering in the wilderness. And we call it wandering. Actually,
they weren't wandering. W-A-N-D-E-R-I-N-G. They weren't wandering around.
They were actually being led by a pillar of fire by night
and a pillar of cloud by day. So the Lord was ordering their
steps. Nevertheless, they lived in a
dry and thirsty land. They lived in a desert for 40
years. And the Lord provided for them
manna every day and the water that comes from the rock. And
he talks about that in this whole passage. And yet, many of them
remained unbelieving and died in the wilderness in spite of
the fact that the Lord had provided for them. This is our experience
in this world. We're not wandering about. The Lord is ordering our steps. We make our plans, and we wonder
sometimes how things are going to work out, but no man is wandering. He's being led by God. Every step, every circumstance,
every situation. And so the Lord is going to use
the example of these children of Israel to prepare us for verses
12 and 13. Verse 1, Moreover, brethren,
I would not that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers
were under the cloud. Under the cloud. Now, some of
our young men have been over to the Middle East, and they
know how hot it can get over there in the desert in the summertime. A couple weeks ago, we had several
days of 97, 98 degrees temperature here, and it was oppressive.
I mean, you could not stay out in the heat very long, could
you? Can you imagine what it'd be like at 120, 130 degrees? They were completely dependent
on the Lord to provide a covering for them. And the Lord's using
this as an example of our life in this world. We live in a land
that it's impossible for us to survive
in. unless the Lord provides a covering. And so this cloud
is Christ. And he said, the sun shall not
smite you by day, nor the moon by night. They had a pillar of
fire by day and a cloud by night, a cloud by day and a pillar of
fire by night, the Lord directing their steps and protecting them. And so he says, moreover brethren,
I would not that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers
were under the cloud and all passed through the sea. Now in Revelation we read, and
there shall be no more sea. And then the scripture says,
God's way for his people is through the sea. Now, the sea represents
two things in the scriptures. It represents separation, and
it represents turbulence, trials, troubles. And so the Lord says,
the way of your fathers was through the sea. I separated the waters. I provided them access to me
through what would otherwise be a barrier that they could
not pass. And so he says, all your fathers
passed through the sea. They were all under the cloud.
Why? Because I was caring for them. I was providing for them. Why? Because the trouble that they
were in was beyond their ability to provide for themselves. They
had the Egyptian army behind them. They had the Red Sea in
front of them. You talk about being between a rock and a hard
place. What were they going to do? Lord, what should we do?
Moses cried and God provided a way. Now there's our experience
in this world. You and I are between a rock
and a hard place. We are unable to provide for
ourselves. And when the Lord makes that
known to us, that's when we look for that way of escape. As long as we think that God's
not going to put more on us than we can bear, and we give ourselves
some false hope and false comfort, peace, peace, when there is no
peace, and convince ourselves with this power of positive thinking
that everything's going to be well, we'll never look for a
way of escape. But when the trouble becomes
beyond our ability, then we look for a way of escape. The Lord
said, they could not survive in the desert, so I gave them
a cloud. They couldn't get across the Red Sea, which separated
them from me. And so I provided a way. Look
at verse two. And they were all baptized unto
Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They were immersed in it.
That's what that word baptism means. It means to be immersed. And so when we observe and practice
baptism, we are identifying ourselves as being immersed in Christ. We're not just, we're completely
buried in Christ and raised to walk a new life in Christ Jesus. And so the Lord's using this
example that the children of Israel had under the cloud and
through the water as a picture of baptism. And in verse 3 says,
and did all eat the same spiritual meat. And what was their spiritual
meat? It was that manna, wasn't it?
It was the manna that God gave them. They were starving out
there in the desert. They didn't have a way to provide
for themselves. Has God brought you to that place? Or do you
still think that God's not going to put more on me than what I
can bear? Are you spiritually starving for some meat, for some
bread from heaven? The Lord Jesus Christ made it
clear. He said, Moses didn't give you that bread. My father
gave you that bread and I am the bread of life. He's that
bread that was sweet like honey, that was round, that was white,
everything about that, the aroma of coriander, everything about
that manna represented the sweetness and the sufficiency of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So all your fathers ate of the
manna. Why? Because they couldn't provide
for themselves. They were incapable. of surviving
in the desert without me performing a miracle of grace, sending them
the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ in the manna. And verse 4, and they did all
drink the same spiritual drink. We're not talking about physical
bread and physical water were taught. This is a spiritual book.
They drank the same spiritual drink. What was that drink? It
was the water that came from the rock which followed them
through the desert. You remember when the Lord commanded
Moses to smite the rock with the rod of God and out from that
rock would flow water to give them life. They were dying without
water in the desert. And Moses, in anger towards the
children of Israel, smote the rock twice. And God rebuked him. Why? Because that rock was Christ. And Christ was only smitten once.
He wasn't smitten twice. When he hung on Calvary's cross,
the rod of God's wrath smote the Lord Jesus Christ and satisfied
all the demands of His holy justice. And the water of life now flows
from Him. See, you and I live in a desert,
a spiritual desert. We can't feed ourselves. We've
got nothing to provide our souls with any meat. We can't give
ourselves any drink. Has God put more on you than
you can bear? And that rock was Christ. It was Christ. He's the rock. The Lord concluded
the Sermon on the Mount in John chapter 7 with that picture,
didn't He, when He talked about those who hear the message of
the Gospel and believe it are like the man who builds his house
upon the rock. And when the storms come, the
winds blow and the rains fall and the howling hurricanes come,
that rock's going to stand. Why? Because it's built on rock.
But the foolish man who refuses Christ, who believes that God's
not going to put more on the meek than I can bear, the storms
are never going to be so strong as to knock me down. I can handle
it. Then he's the man who builds
his house on the sand. And when the storms come, that
house falls, and how great is the fall thereof. That's the
natural man. He's just building his house,
building his material house, building his spiritual house
on sand. The Lord says, that rock was
Christ. That rock was smitten by God.
Moses being a picture of the law. The reason Moses couldn't
come into the promised land, Joshua had to lead the children
of Israel into the promised land, is because Moses represented
the law. The law of God could not lead the children of Israel.
Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ, had to be the one to separate
the Jordan River, the River of Death, and bring them into that
land that was flowing with milk and honey, the Promised Land.
So it is for us. We're in a wilderness, folks.
We are. I hope you know that. We want our children to be confident. We want them to be humble. We
want them to be responsible. But, you know,
with the things of life and the things of this world, and we
train them up to hopefully be that way, and yet we understand
these things when the Lord shows us what's really going on. It
goes a whole lot deeper than just the temporal circumstances
of our lives, doesn't it? Look at verse 5. So, the whole chapter now, prior
to verses 12 and 13, is talking about these circumstances that God
put his people in that were beyond their ability to care for themselves. He cast them into a desert. They've
got no food, they've got no water, they've got no way to get across
the Red Sea. Now these things, verse six,
I'm sorry, verse five, but with many of them God was not well
pleased, for they were overthrown in the
wilderness. Now that's a reference to Numbers
chapter 14, when the 12 spies came back from spying out the
land, and Joshua and Caleb, You know who they represent, don't
you? Joshua is Christ, and Caleb is the child of God. Caleb's
name means faithful dog, and Joshua's name means salvation
is of the Lord. So here we've got Christ and
his church, and they're the only two that came back with a positive
report, and the rest of them were all functioning according
to the flesh. And what'd they say? Well, we've
got an enemy that we can't withstand. And Moses rebukes them because
of their unbelief. And so, rather than... And Moses tells them, you're
going to spend, because of your unbelief, you're going to spend
40 years in the wilderness. You know what they said? Go to
Numbers 14. They said, well, we'll go to battle. They said,
don't do it. You're going presumptuously.
You're going without the Lord. And they went and they left the
Ark of the Covenant back in the camp and they went to battle
against the Amalekites and the Canaanites and they lost. They lost. Why? Well, the first
error was that they didn't believe there was a way of escape. They
saw the enemy and they thought, you know, this is too big for
us. And then they went and tried to battle against the enemy without
the Lord's help. And so they presumed upon God
and they lost the battle and they all died. Those that went
to battle, Moses warned them, said, don't do it. But they did
it anyway. You know what we do? We look
at the enemy and we say it's too great and then we feel convicted
and we go to battle without the Lord and we fail. Whatever battle
we go against, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're spiritual, they're mighty
through God to the pulling down of strongholds and bringing into
captivity every thought and imagination to the obedience of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So the Lord says, now these were
an example to you. They were put by God into a situation
that they couldn't provide for themselves. And then when they
were rebuked, they've tried to fight the battle themselves.
and they lost. And look at verse 6. Now these
things were our examples to the intent that we should not lust
after evil things as they also lusted. Now this word lust can
mean lots of different things and we all know what it means
in our own experience, but really what he's talking about here
is the lust for power. The lust for power. The lust
to control my circumstances. I can do this. God's not going
to put more in me than I can bear. I can handle this. I can fix this problem. I can
solve this. And we're just like those 10
spies that went back into the battle against the Amalekites
and the Canaanites without the Lord. And the Lord's saying,
this was given to you as an example. Don't do what they did. Don't
do what they did. They lusted after power, which
is all that phrase is. God won't put more on you than
you can bear. That's man boasting himself in
his ability. Look at the next verse. Neither be ye idolaters, as were
some of them As it is written, the people sat down to eat and
drink and rose up to play. Now, that's a reference to Exodus
chapter 32 when Moses went up on Mount Sinai to receive the
law from God and Aaron was left with the children of Israel down
in the valley and they got impatient. We can't see this God. We can't see Moses anymore. We
need a God that we can see, one that we can handle. And so Aaron
said, okay, we'll take off your earrings, and he melted them
into the fashion of a bull, which was the god of Egypt. They were
going back to worship the gods of Egypt, weren't they? And what
was the point? They wanted something they could
see. That's what idolatry is. Idolatry is putting your trust
in what you can see with your physical eyes and handle with
your physical hands. You know, if I've just got enough
money in the bank, then I'll be secure. If I can see my way
to solve this problem, then I'm happy. You know, it's idolatry. It takes so many different forms.
It's replacing our dependence upon God with dependence upon
something else. That's all idolatry is. It's
taking God down and putting up another God. And we all do it
in so many different ways every day, don't we? And the Lord's
saying, this is given to you as an example. You see how verse
13 is now going to fit into all of this? The Lord's not saying
you can handle it. Just believe. Just be strong. I'm not going to put more on
you than you can bear. No, just the opposite is being
said. Look at verse 8. neither let us commit fornication
as some of them committed and fell in one day three and twenty
thousand." Now that's a reference to Numbers chapter 25 when the
children of Israel met with the Moabites and the scripture says
that some of the men took Moabite women and slept with them, took
them to be their wives and they disobeyed God and the Lord sent
a plague is what happened. And how many of them were killed
according to verse 8? 23,000 men died because they
disobeyed the Lord and took that which was forbidden by God. You have a problem with that? That's sin, isn't it? That's
just sin. Sin is transgression of the law. That's what God says sin is. And you have a problem with sin? You've got something you can't
bear. The truth is sin is a whole lot
stronger than you are. It's a whole lot stronger than
I am. You can't stand up to it. And then the judgment of God
that's going to come against sin, 23,000, God slew them right
there on the spot because they committed fornication with these
Moabites. They disobeyed God and then they were led into worship
of Baal Peor, the scripture says, which was the god of the Moabites,
and they just were disobeying God. You and I have a problem with
sin. And we've got a burden because
of that sin that we can't bear. If God ever makes you to be a
sinner, shows you that the justice of God demands death, it demands
it. I'll not forgive one sin. and
the day in which you eat of the fruit of that tree, which was
disobedience." And Saul said, disobedience. You shall surely
die. Now the Lord is saying, I gave
you this as an example to show you that you have a burden, whether
it be your ability to eat, whether it be your ability to drink,
whether it be your ability to survive the heat of the desert,
whether it be your ability to cross the sea. You've got a need
that you can't handle. And it's seen in your temporal
circumstances, and it's most especially seen in your spiritual
circumstances. And let the man think that he
stands, take heed, lest he falls. And this is common to all men.
It's common to every one of us. You know, we think, well, you
know, nobody really understands my plight. If you're a sinner, another sinner
does. Another sinner does. That's what makes the Fellowship
of Believers so sweet, isn't it? We understand one another. We don't stand in judgment of
one another. We encourage one another and pray for one another,
and we know by our own experience what this problem is that we
can't deal with. Verse 9. This is a reference to Numbers
21 in verse 9. You can read all of these in
previous books in the Old Testament. Neither let us tempt Christ as
some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Now what was it that the children
of Israel did that caused God to send the fiery serpents into
the camp and kill so many Israelites? What was it they did? Well, read
it. The scripture says they murmured
against God, but what was their number one murmuring? Our soul
hates, loathes this light bread. We're sick and tired of eating
manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, and manna for dinner.
You know what that's like. You can't eat leftovers more
than two or three days in a row, can you? The flesh demands variety. That's what the flesh requires.
And it gets tired of that which is just mundane and over and
over again, doesn't it? And if we're walking just according
to the flesh, what do fleshly men say when they come and hear
us talk about Christ all the time? Is that all you've got?
Don't you have some variety? Don't you have something I can
do? Don't you have some new idea or some new thought or new doctrine
or new knowledge? No. We profess to know nothing
among you save Christ and Him crucified. And we eat manna for
breakfast. We eat manna for lunch. And we
eat manna for dinner. And we're thankful for that manna.
We're thankful for that manna. The flesh is not going to be
satisfied with it, but the new man is. The Spirit is, isn't
it? You're a new man content with
Christ. You don't want anything more. You just want more of Him.
You just want more of Him. You don't want Christ plus anything
else. You just want more of Christ. Show me more of yourself, Lord. What I've seen I love, and I
want to see more." That's what Paul said. Oh, that I might know
Him, the fellowship of His suffering and the power of His resurrection.
I've not yet apprehended that which has apprehended me. This
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, I press
towards the mark, the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. So the Lord's saying, don't be
like the children of Israel. He got sick and tired of manna.
Ask God for a spiritual appetite to be content with the sweetness
of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're looking for anything
outside of Christ, then you're not understanding the example
of the Israelites. So God sent him fiery serpents.
And then what was the solution to those fiery serpents? The
Lord told Moses, He said, make a serpent of brass and put it
on a pole. Why? Because that serpent represented
their sin. And here we have a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on Calvary's cross who knew no
sin, God made sin. And the Lord said, anybody that
looks at that serpent will live. No matter how close to dying
you are, no matter how many snakes you've got around your feet,
look to the serpent and you'll live. And the Lord said, and
I, if I be lifted up, will draw men to me. And as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up. Everything you need to know about
God, can be seen in the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on Calvary's
cross. Everything you need to know about
the love of God, everything you need to know about the justice
of God, everything you need to know about the holiness of God,
everything you need to know about the righteousness of God, everything
you need to know about the grace of God and the mercy of God,
everything you need to know about God is exemplified in Christ
hanging on Calvary's cross. And so the Lord said, look to
me. Look, and you'll live. But no, oh no, I don't need that.
God's not going to put more on me than I can bear. Verse 10. Neither murmur ye, as some of
them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer."
God sent a plague to the children of Israel. For what? Because
of their complaining. When we complain, you know, we're
doing exactly what they did. We're accusing God of wrongdoing. Or, this is not right. This is
not fair. This is not just. Rather than looking to Christ,
we murmur, don't we? Now, all these things happened
unto them for examples and are written for our admonition upon
whom the end of the world has come. Now, this was written 2,000 years
ago. What that means is that the end
of the world is 2,000 years closer than it was when God said, you're
living in the end of the world. I love thinking about the end
of this world. I really do. I've seen all this world I care
to see. And I love thinking about the end of it. God's going to
roll it up. bring all this mess to an end,
and show us the fullness of His glory. What a day, what a day
that redemption is going to be. The Lord said, encourage one
another. He's put you in the end of the world. And let him
who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. If you think
that you can handle the things that God has given you and that
God's never put more on you than you can bear, you're in for a
big fall. Big fall. But if you believe verse 13,
all these things are temptations. That's what they are. What is
a temptation? Anything in your life and in
my life that distracts us from Christ, that lessens our dependence
upon Him. How many of those do you experience
every day? There hath no temptation taken
you, but such as is common to all men. God is faithful. He will not suffer you to be
tempted above that which you are able with the way of escape. but will provide a way of escape,
the way of escape, that you might be able to bear it. Lord, life
is too big for me. My troubles are too great. The
conflicts, the consequences of my sin, the doubts and the fears. Lord, it is too great for me.
It's too great for me. And if I have to stand before
a holy God and answer for my sin, I've got a trouble I know
I won't be able to bear. Provide me, Lord, the way of
escape. Give me Christ, the manna from
heaven, the rock from which the water flows. All right, let's
take a break. Yeah.