May it please Almighty God to
bless us together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let
us turn to the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter
10, and we'll read the first five verses. The first epistle
of Paul to the Corinthians, and chapter 10, and reading the first
five verses. Moreover, brethren, I would not
that ye should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under
the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized
unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea and did all eat the same
spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink. For
they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and
that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was
not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. as we read the various letters
that the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches in the day and age
in which he was on the earth, we realise again and again his
great concern that those who were aware of the truth of God
might not pass it by, but that it might have a real and eternal
blessing upon their souls. And therefore, he argues things
very clearly and very strongly and very powerfully. And what
he wrote to the church at Corinth so many years ago is still really
appropriate for the day and age in which we live. And commences
with these strong words, moreover, brethren, I would not that ye
should be ignorant. Now, that's a good statement
for all people to realize how important it is that we are not
ignorant of the things of God. And when I say that, I mean,
it's not just a case of knowing the scriptures, knowing the truth
of God in our mind. That's good and right and proper. But you and I need to have the
effect of God's Word speaking to our hearts because if that
is so then that produces a change and we'll be in that case like
that man was that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to he said one thing
I know whereas I was blind it doesn't mean physically it means
spiritually I was blind now I see And that's a good question for
all of us to be able to answer this morning as to whether there
has been, which there has been, a time when we are blind or were
blind and we're in one of those two categories we are either
still blind or we have been blind. And if we have been blind and
the light of the glorious Gospel has shone into our hearts so
that we are no longer therefore blind but we are spiritually
alert and we have spiritual eyes to know the great and glorious
truth of God. Well that's really what the Apostle
was aiming at here and he tells us moreover brethren I would
not that ye should be ignorant. You see it doesn't matter how
much we may think we're Christians It doesn't matter how many times
we go to the services on the Sunday and in the week. All these
things are good and right. It doesn't matter how much we
read the Bible, how much we read the hymns, how many hymns we
might be able to repeat, how many verses in the Bible we might
be able to repeat. All these things are good. But
let us be very clear, they will not save our soul. We need to know personally the
knowledge that the Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross at
Calvary to take away all our sins. And we won't know anything
about that unless the Holy Spirit has convinced us that we are
a sinner and that we have disobeyed the Word of God. That's really
what the Apostle drives at when he writes to the Corinthians
and having started like that and then we'll come back to the
other verses but coming to the fifth verse he just warns us
and tells us he says this but with many of them God was not
well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness so going right
to the end then can we examine ourselves and it's good and right
and proper to examine ourselves and to be able to recognize that
God is well pleased with us or is he angry with us? And will
we be those who are overthrown in the wilderness? These things
are very important for us. And you might think, why are
they important? They are so important because
they refer to our spiritual life which will never end. That's
why it's important. You and I will die naturally
on this earth. Our bodies will perish. Our souls
will live on forever. And it's something that you and
I need to understand. We need the Holy Spirit to convince
us of the necessity of being born again of the Spirit of God. Well, I know that some of the
children this morning listened about Nicodemus. Nicodemus is
a wonderful character in the Word of God, and he came to Jesus
by night. He wasn't brave enough at that
time to come to Jesus by day, and he inquired about the truth,
and God told him, the Saviour told him very clearly he must
be born again Nicodemus asked him a question the Lord ignored
it there are many questions which we are asked my friends, let
us not be sidetracked by things which are not very important
because there is the great need to know that you and I are born
again of the Spirit of God. When Nicodemus' case, we're thankful
to know that he was born again. the Spirit did call him by grace
because we know when the Lord Jesus was taken down from the
cross by Arimathea that Nicodemus was one who helped him clearly
the Lord had worked in his spirit well, all of us need to know
the great evidence of God's work in our souls it's important that you and I
can answer before God as to whether we do have the evidence the clear
evidence of God's work in our heart to know that we are born
again of the Spirit of God. Well that's really what the Apostle
Paul homes in to us here in these verses because he's telling the
Corinthians to remember what had happened to their forebears
when they came out of Egypt how God dealt with them and how God
was with them and you and I my friends need to know that ourselves
we have the Word of God It's a wonderful account. It's an
historical account. It's a truthful account. And
it tells us about our need of salvation. The very last verse
in this 10th chapter that we read, reads this, even as I please
all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit
of many that they may be saved. And you may ask, what does that
mean? It means that you and I should be saved from the wrath of God,
saved from the anger of God, saved from spending eternity
in hell. Now what a blessing it is if
therefore we hear the truth of the gospel and we are concerned
to know that the Lord Jesus Christ has died to take away our sins. My friends, let us not be satisfied
with just as I've already spoken a knowledge of these things in
our head. We need to know the truth of
God in our heart and we need to have the blessed application
of the work of the Spirit which has touched our heart. so that
we do know that we are those whom the Lord has loved with
an everlasting love. It's not of any satisfaction
to go on through life without knowing these great truths. You and I may appear to be a
wonderful Christian, But my friends, it's not what we appear to man,
it's what we appear to God. And it's, we can say, how stands
the case my soul with thee? For heaven are thy credentials
clear. Is Jesus Christ thy only plea? Is he thy great forerunner there? It's a great question, isn't
it? You may have said, well, I pray
to God. You may pray to God. Or at least you may think you
pray to God. You may be like a Pharisee who
prays to himself. And you may pray and you may
be proud of your prayers. Well, the Pharisee was proud
of his prayers. but they weren't right prayers.
They weren't good prayers. Whereas the publican prayed from
his heart and he prayed very simply, God be merciful to me,
a sinner. Now that is, if that comes from
your heart, it's not a very wonderful prayer naturally, there's not
long words in it, it's not a long sentence, it's very simple but
It came from his heart. And the Lord spoke about that
man, and he said, I tell you, that man went down to his house
justified rather than the other. That means he was just before
God. Not because of what he had done,
but because of what God had done in his heart. That's the relevance
of the truth of God's word. So, my friends today, may our
great concern be that we do possess the evidence of the Lord's work
in our heart. We can go back in our lives and
we can remember a place, a time when God caused us to consider
our ways, when God caused a change And it's not just, you know,
having, as we might use a natural statement, a flash in the pan.
And you youngsters might wonder what that means. Well, in old
days, they used to have guns and they used to put gunpowder
in that pan and shot. And then the trigger produced
a spark, which would then ignite the gunpowder and shoot the shot. But you see, if there was only
a flash that didn't ignite the gunpowder, it was of no good. And it was just referred to as
a flash in the pan. Well, my friends, that's in a
spiritual sense. We don't want to just have something
which we think is good and right. We want to have the very evidence
of the work of God directing us to that place where we might
say there's an explosion in our life. There's a sudden change,
a sudden change, and that change is that we find that we're truly
pleading to God for mercy as in your head knowledge your wonderful
ability to quote scripture and all that will disappear and you'll stand before a holy
God and in that place you'll stand
now with nothing in your hands to bring. You won't have anything
good in yourself but you'll be looking to the Lord Jesus Christ
for mercy and have the evidence that He and He alone has indeed
died for you and redeemed you from all your sin. Well what a blessing it is then
to have such a God and to have the the evidence of the work
of the Holy Spirit in your soul. You know, that's the great and
important thing that all of us need to have. So, just then going
back to this first verse, he says, Brethren, I would not that
ye should be ignorant. And my friends, what a blessing
it is if we are not left to be ignorant. but that we are blessed
with the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Now, Paul then,
he reiterates to these Corinthians what had happened years ago when
Israel came out of Egypt. And that was a wonderful deliverance. And he tells us, I would not,
but you should be ignorant. And then he says how all our
fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea. You may remember when Israel
came out of Egypt, the Lord God brought a cloud upon them which
separated between them and the Egyptians who were chasing them. So they weren't able to come
close to the Israelites. And of course, the relevance
was that that cloud then was with them, really, all through
their journey through the wilderness, all those 40 years. And it was
a wonderful provision for them. And it was that cloud which guided
them. And therefore, Paul is now saying,
remember how all your fathers were under the cloud. You were
all guided by the cloud. And then to remember, they all
passed through the sea, that wonderful occasion of the Red
Sea, when there seemed to be no way of escape. The sea was
before them. The mountains were on one side
and the Egyptians were behind them. How were they going to
escape? Were they now going to be slaughtered
by the Egyptians? Well, as you may remember, of
course, there was that wonderful miracle that God did when Moses
was commanded to hold out his rod over the sea. And what happened
was the sea parted miraculously and Israel went over on dry land. And so they're told here how
all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through
the sea. He wanted them to remember God's
goodness and mercy toward them. Well, that is good, and it is
important for us today to remember the truth of God's word. We have the word of God, the
Bible to read, and may we read it and remember the great and
wonderful truths that are contained in it. And then he tells us,
And we're all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
Well, that's not particularly easy for us to interpret today.
But it would seem that, of course, when they went across the Red
Sea, they did go down into the sea. It wasn't there physically,
but they went down and they came up again, which, of course, is
what the New Testament baptism refers to, going into the water,
down into the water, and then being raised again out of the
water. And so the apostle desires to
remind the Corinthians of this truth they would have been aware
of course of baptism they would have been aware of the situation
and then he says and then he says and did all eat the same
spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink well
it was a miracle of course that israel were kept alive all those
years when they went through the wilderness, by the Lord providing
for them manna, that heavenly food to eat, every day it was
provided fresh for them, and they were to gather it apart
from the Lord's Day, the Sunday, when double amount was to be
collected on the Saturday, so that they were able to not have
to go and collect any on the Lord's Day, and to keep the Lord's
Day as we are commanded in the fourth commandment, to keep it
holy. And so, he said, and did all eat the same spiritual meat? Did all drink the same spiritual
drink? We're just running through the
physical situation first. And of course, there was water
needed in the wilderness. And how was water provided? Moses was commanded to take his
rod and to strike the rock which he did and we're told and water
gushed out wasn't just a trickle it gushed out and it became a
river and followed the Israelites all those years through the wilderness
almost until they came to the Promised Land. So there was a
wonderful provision for Israel naturally in food and drink. So we should be thankful that
there was that natural provision. And then you see the Apostle
goes on to tell us and did all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. Well, physically, of course,
the Lord Jesus Christ was not there. But we have the many emblems
of Christ being there. And we have to go back, don't
we, really, right to the beginning of Genesis when the Lord prophesied
that there would be that one raised up who would bruise the
serpent's head. And we know that that was a prophecy
with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it came to pass. And now Paul is looking back,
really, to remind the Israelites that there were all those years
all those many many years and the Corinthians in this epistle
to be reminded of this great need to be a partaker of spiritual
food and spiritual drink. Now the truth is that Israel
were wonderfully blessed but Israel did not then follow the
commands of God and that means just running on you see to the
fifth verse they've been in the wilderness for about a year and
God told them to go and he commanded them to go and to conquer the
land of Canaan which they had been promised years and years
before well We know that the Lord allowed them to send 40
spies to spy the land. The spies went and spied out
the land and they came back and 10 of the spies said it was a
good land, but they weren't able to go and conquer the land. We're
very thankful there was Caleb and Joshua who disagreed with
them. And Caleb said, we are well able. to conquer the land. Nonetheless, those 10 spies that
didn't agree, the whole nation of Israel then agreed to follow
their advice and to not follow the command of God. And because
they didn't follow the command of God, they were all overthrown
in the wilderness, those who were 20 years old and above. None of them entered into the
promised land. That's why this statement tells
us. But with many of them, God was
not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Overthrown. And so the picture
we have here is that they didn't believe what God had commanded
them to do. They didn't believe that he would
be with them and enable them to conquer the land of Canaan. And my friends, that's so true
today. You and I have the glorious gospel
to read, the glorious gospel to hear, the glorious gospel
to obey. And many, many today ignore it. Many, many today do not believe
it. Do not believe it. And the situation
is if there is no believing, there is no future in glory for
such. It won't matter how much we think
we know but do we know personally the great blessing of the work
of the Holy Spirit and to know what God has done and will do.
When you think of the many people that listened to those words
that were spoken on Monday when the Prime Minister read part
of the 14th of John and those words were read in my father's
house many mansions if it were not so I would have told you
I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place
for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that
where I am there ye may be also that's a wonderful statement
well my friends it's a statement which is addressed to those who
do believe the gospel not those who ignore the truth of God,
not to those who do not believe. There will be no mansion in glory
for such. On the opposite side they will
spend eternity in utter misery. So what a blessing it is if you
and I today hear the Word of God, which we all do, and receive
it and by the grace of God believe it. You see there are no unbelievers
in heaven and there are no believers in hell. That's the stark difference
and that's the great important consideration for us today. to be amongst those who know
the truth of the Gospel. And so the Apostle speaks here
of food, spiritual food and spiritual drink. All of us naturally, in
our life, must eat and must drink. If we don't eat and we don't
drink, we should die, won't we? Spiritually, you and I must have
spiritual food if we don't have spiritual food we don't possess
the life of God within and that spiritual food is very simply
to feed not physically but to speak from our hearts and to
live believing in the Lord Jesus Christ that he died upon that
cross at Calvary to take away our sins. So these great truths
of the Gospel are applied to us. When the Lord Jesus was on
the earth, he had reason to go through a
place called Samaria. And we're told, and he must needs
go through Samaria. He had to go through Samaria,
and you may ask why. Well, he had to go through to
meet with a special person, a woman. And my friends, every true believer,
God meets with. It's wonderful, therefore, if
he comes and has met or will meet with you and me and we shouldn't
think therefore well of course these things happened years ago
and they don't happen today because from a spiritual aspect they
do Jesus does come and meets with his people and shows to
them what they need and shows to them what they are and The
Lord came and we're told he sat on the well. He came to a well
and he sat there because he was tired. Disciples went away, left
by himself, and a woman came. A woman came and she said, How
is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am
a woman of Samaria? Jesus had said to her as she'd
come to this world, give me to drink. And of course, he spoke
in this way in a particular way for a reason. And that reason
was to evoke questions from her. And it may be that the Lord comes
to us in a spiritual sense and asks us questions. Do you believe? Is it true? Are you a follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you walk in his ways? Do you
walk contrary to him? The Lord asks these questions
to our hearts. And it's a great blessing if
he does. And if we're able then to answer such questions. And therefore the woman had said,
how is it that thou askest drink of me, which I'm a woman of Samaria,
for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. And Jesus
said, if thou knewest the gift of God, I'll come back to that
in a moment. And who it is that saith to thee,
Give me to drink? Thou wouldst have asked of him,
and he would have given thee living water. The woman said,
Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. But whence cometh this living
water? Aren't they greater than our father Jacob, which gave
us the well and drank thereof himself and his children and
his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto
her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. That's a lovely statement, isn't
it? Whosoever drinketh. Only those will drink who are
thirsty. Only those who will drink who
need the water of life, to know the Lord Jesus Christ. But whosoever
drinketh the water that I shall give him shall never thirst,
but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of
water, springing up into everlasting life. And the woman said, Sir,
give me this water. that I thirst not, neither come
hither to draw." Well, the woman desired this. She didn't realize,
of course, the spiritual significance. And then the Lord questioned
her. He asked her about a husband. She said she had no husband.
The Lord said, well, you've been honest, because you've had five
husbands, and the one who you've now got is not your husband.
And the woman realized, she said, Sir, I perceive that thou art
a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain. And ye say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto
her, Woman, believe me, believe me. How important it is for all
of us today to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe
that he is the only begotten Son of God, to believe that he
is the one who doesn't only give us natural water, but gives us
the water of life, that which springs up within us. Has God
given you and me the water of life? It is His gift. It's not something you and I
merit, not something you and I deserve, but it's that which
God gives to all of His children, the water of life. Well, has
God given you this water of life? The Lord went on and said, Woman,
believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain
nor yonder at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship ye know
not what. How many people today worship,
they don't know who. They don't know whether there
is a God. They're really in a haze. They
don't know what to think. Is there a God? Is there not
a God? What do you think today? Do you think there's a God? And
if you think there's a God, do you know that God? When you shall neither in this
mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship
ye know not what. We know what we worship for salvation
is of the Jews. That means naturally the Jews
were blessed by God, but it represents, of course, all the Church of
God. All the Church of God felt salvation
is for the people of God. The saving of our souls, the
saving of your soul, saving of my soul. It's the one important
thing to know. that we are saved we are saved
that there is an eternal happiness ahead of us that we are saved
my friends if you don't know if you don't know and don't pretend
to know if you don't don't be taken in by satan satan says
you'll be alright don't worry don't worry just carry on It's
not good enough. We must know the Lord Jesus Christ
as our Saviour. We must know that he is that
one who has died for us upon the cross at Christ. We must
know that what he has done for us is wonderful for us and it's
music in our ears. and we rejoice in it and we love
to hear about it and we want to hear about it and we don't
just forget about it we don't come out of chapel having heard
the sermon and forget about it go home and don't think about
it if it's the work of God in our spirit we will Think about
it and we will rejoice about it. We will thank God for it. So the Lord comes and tells of
the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth. And we're a true worshipper today.
There's many people who've been false worshippers. As people
who sat and listened to the gospel week in, week out, week in, week
out, and have never been a true worshipper. They've pretended. They've been hypocrites. There's
no spiritual life in them. They've pretended. And so, here
the Lord says, then for The hour cometh now is when the true worshipers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father
seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Well,
this aroused this woman. As the Lord spoke these great
words to her, and it's wonderful if such words arouse us. The woman said unto him, I know
that Messiah's cometh. Of course, she was looking forward,
perhaps, to realize there would be a savior who would come, which
is called Christ. When he is come, he will tell
us all things. Jesus said unto her, I that speak
unto thee am he. Jesus was and is the true messiah
what a wonderful thing it is to know that he has come and
he has fulfilled all that the father gave him to do well he
tells us this the apostle paul says and all drink drank the
same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock
that followed them and that rock was Christ. Well, what does Christ
Jesus mean to you and to me today? Is he just an historical figure? He was a historical figure. We
thank God for that. But he was far more than that. He was the saviour of sinners. And we're told he came to seek
that which was lost. Now it's a great blessing if
you and I know something of the work of the Holy Spirit which
has convinced us that we're a sinner and that we're a lost sinner.
There's no hope in ourselves and we need God to come and give
us the great and glorious gift of eternal life. You and I must receive it. We
receive many things in this world, don't we? Many things we want,
many things we go after. But let us remember, one thing
is needful. As Jesus said, one thing is needful. And he was referring now to Martha,
who sat at Jesus' feet to listen what he spoke and absorb the
great and glorious truth that he spoke. One thing is needful.
And that's so true for us today. We need to know the Lord Jesus
Christ. And by that, I mean this. We
need to know that he's died upon that cross at Calvary for us
individually. It's true for the whole Church
of God. You and I need to know it, that you and I are one. You and I are part of that Church
of Jesus Christ. And you will long to know that. And you'll long to hear about
the things of Jesus. You won't just be fed up and
wish the preacher would sit down and don't want to read any more
of the Bible. The truth of God will be food
and drink to your soul. Well, I wonder this morning,
is the Lord Jesus Christ food and drink to your soul? Do you love to hear about him?
Do you love to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you love
to hear what he did and realise what he's done in dying upon
that cross at Calvary to take away the sins of all his church
and to know that you and I are included in that number? The Lord Jesus works in our heart
and causes us to come before him and to truly be sorry for
our sins. and to truly repent of our sins
and to truly seek that we may know the wonderful evidence that
the Lord Jesus Christ died upon Calvary's cross to redeem the
whole Church of God and that includes me. You and I must know
the wonderful blessing of that truth redeeming love. The love
of Christ, my friends, is rich and free. It's a wonderful truth,
isn't it? Do you know something of the
love of Christ? What does Christ mean to you
today? Be honest, be honest. Does he mean anything? You say,
well, of course I believe. Well, let me ask you a question,
you know. The Song of Solomon is a lovely little book, and
in that there's an account, really, of the Bride of Christ, which
is the Church of God, and the Heavenly Bridegroom, which is
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the congregation, which
I'll refer to. And they ask the bride, they
say, what is your beloved more than another beloved? Very simply
that means, what is the Lord Jesus Christ to you more than
everyone else? What is he to you today? Well,
the bride of Christ gave a good account of what Jesus was to
her. And she concludes her statement
by saying, he is the altogether lovely and the chiefest among
10,000 to her, because he was her savior. He was the one who
died for her sins. He was the one who had brought
upon her the grace of God, the free unmerited favor of God.
And that's why she was to him the altogether lovely and the
chiefest among 10,000. She was to him, sorry, he was
to her spiritual food and spiritual drink. That's the great and important
reality of the life of a true Christian, to know Jesus Christ
and Him crucified and desire to hear about Him and to read
about Him and to rejoice in what He's done. This is the reality
of true religion, my friends. Nothing less than that will suffice. Don't think you'll get to heaven
without the knowledge and the evidence of these great things
to your soul, to your heart, in a personal way and real religion
is between your soul and my soul and God. It's not just a theory,
it's a reality and it's essential. essential. You and I are blessed
with this knowledge. And it means then having this
spiritual food and spiritual drink and that spiritual rock
that followed them. And that rock was Christ. Well, my friends today, what
does Christ mean to you and me? What does he mean? Be honest. Is he to you? the cheapest among
10,000, and the altogether lovable. Isaiah, as I repeat, the one
you love to hear about, you love to speak about. Because if Christ
has done something in your heart, you ought to tell people about
it. Because it's His work and His
grace, and it's a wonderful blessing. It's an eternal blessing because
it will land you in heaven. Well, let's ponder these things. Let's rejoice in them. And may
we know them. Oh, may they not just be head
knowledge. May they be in our hearts. And
may we have the wonderful evidence that we can testify, the Lord
has remembered me. The Lord has come to me. The
Lord has spoken to me and I do have that good and solid hope
that it's well with my soul.