Looking at I Corinthians in chapter
10, we began looking at this chapter
last week. And of course, Paul is speaking
and reminding these Corinthians that they were all one in Christ. And that's, you know, the message we are sent to declare is that
we are made one with Christ by that which He has done in our
behalf, but we are also made one together in Christ, and that
the Lord would have us to love one another and to consider one
another as brethren, and He being our Head and our Keeper. And so he says to them that they
should be ignorant how that all of our fathers were under the
cloud and all passed through the sea. Now, of course, this
is a highly figurative language because many of those to whom
he was speaking here were Gentiles who were not physically descended
from Abraham in the strictest sense of the word, and their
ancestry and natural things did not go back through Moses and
through these things that he is specifically speaking about
here, but he is speaking in the fact that all of God's people
are made one. We all have one Father. And we've
all passed through the cloud when the Egyptians or when the
Israelites were passed through the Red Sea. We passed through
the Red Sea with them even though we don't have any blood perhaps. Maybe we do, some of us, but
we didn't. It's not by blood. It's not by
anything that men can see, touch, taste or handle in this world
that attaches a man to Christ. Nothing that a man can do, or
nothing that a man can say, or nothing that a man can call somebody
else to do can bring a man into that place. But by the grace
of God, He's brought all of His people into Christ, and there's
nothing that can get them out, because there was nothing but
His purpose and will that put them there in the first place.
And He loved us. if we be in Christ with an everlasting
love. And that's a glorious thing.
And of course, you know, when Paul began this book and basically
rebuked the Corinthians for dividing themselves up into sects and,
you know, getting, thinking that it was better to be baptized
by one or being proud that they were baptized by another, that
they were a follower of this one or a follower of that one.
And he said, look, all of that doesn't make any difference.
We're all one in Christ. It doesn't matter. about all
of those different things. 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. There is no
other drink, there is no other meat, there is no other rock,
there is no other source of help for the children of God than
Jesus Christ. And that He is the center and
the sum and the substance of all that we stand upon. And if it be something else attached
to that, then it's too much. If it be something less than
that, then it's not enough. So it is Christ and Christ alone. And he said that spiritual rock
that followed them, that rock was Christ. Now, a man will have
a hard time. You know, sometimes people say,
Brother, I believe the Bible just as I believe every word
on the page, and I believe that it just means what it says, and
I believe it literally. Now, there are people that will
fight you over believing that they say, especially, and it
always comes about when they are talking about Bible prophecy,
and they say, Brother, I believe it literally. I believe it is
going to happen literally just like it is. You know, maybe some
of those things may happen literally as they are. I don't know. But
I know this, the truth that's found in the Word of God is not
always plainly set forth in literal terms. And right here is a very
good example. He said the rock that followed
them was Christ. Now how many rocks have you ever
seen moving? I mean, now he talks about that
rock was, you know, he's speaking about the rock, he's speaking
in a figurative sense of that rock from which their water came,
that they got the water out of the rock. But the rock didn't
move from one spot in the desert to another, did it? No, he's
just speaking about the fact that the source of their sustenance
was Christ. Just like the source of our sustenance
is Christ. Now they thought they were drinking
this water that was coming from this rock, and they were sustained
in the natural sense. But the reason the Lord gave
them water out of the rock wasn't so that they could satisfy their
thirst, although it did satisfy their thirst. But the purpose
of the water coming out of the rock was so that the Lord might
show them Christ. And He might show us Christ,
because many of them died. without any knowledge of such
things. That rock was Christ. And with
many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown
in the wilderness. Now they are not all Israel which
are of Israel. That is what he is saying. He
said there are many that were numbered among those in the natural
sense with whom the Lord was displeased. And He overthrew
them in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples
to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also
lusted." Now, we learn from the dealings that the Lord had with
the nation of Israel of those things that we are exhorted and
admonished to avoid. Now, the blessings of God to
His people are not conditional. In other words, the Lord doesn't
say, well, I'm going to hold this blessing back, and as soon as
they do this, I'm going to pour it out on them. If they don't,
I'm going to hold it back. No, the Lord intends to give
His blessings to His people, and He leads them in those paths
that He would have them to go in, and He blesses them in those
paths. You see, a man that walks in
disobedience to the Lord is deprived of the blessing of God. Now, some would say he is deprived
of the blessing because he walked in disobedience. And I say that
his disobedience is caused by the Lord holding back his blessing
to him. Because you see, as you said
this morning, and I even pointed out, the Lord is the first cause
of all things. And obedience to the way of the
Lord is a blessing, is it not? I mean, that is the blessing.
We don't obey the Lord to get a blessing, but it's the blessing
of God when He enables us to obey Him and to walk in His way. What a glorious thing it is,
dear brethren, that the Lord should so move in His people,
and He does do that. And He also teaches us things
along the way by our own disobedience as He would manifest what we
are by nature. How else would we know it except
the Lord should show it to us? 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. Neither let
us commit fornication, as some of them committed and fell in
one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ,
as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of surplus."
Now we learn of the Lord by the things that He did as He set
forth His displeasure upon the natural nation of Israel. We
learn the character of God. We see who He is and what He
is. And when the Scripture says our
God is a consuming fire, That enlivens our mind, does it not? And causes us to fear Him as
well it should, because that is how we are brought and taught
of the Lord. Now, it's an amazing thing that
throughout the Scriptures we're taught to fear God, and yet at
the same time He says to us, fear not. Isn't that an amazing
thing? But I mean, the Lord, you see,
is the author of all things. He is the author of causing His
people to tremble in fear before Him, and He is the author also
of the sweetness of knowledge that comes to them as they realize
that all condemnation has been taken from them, and they stand
before Him as those who were perfectly received in His sight. Now those two things to the man
of the world and to the flesh, they're conflicts, aren't they? They can't exist together. And
men think that if you don't lay the law heavily upon people's
hearts, they won't obey the Lord. But they fail to understand that
it's God that works in us, both the will and to do of His good
pleasure. And He is the one that works obedience in His people
and brings them to walk with Him. It's not the fear of the
law. If the fear of the law could
keep men from sinning, then we would be free from sin, would
we not? I mean, we talked a little bit
about this before the meeting today, about if you could have
a law. I mean, the law says to men,
if you kill somebody, you go into the electric chair. Now,
has that stopped murder? No, it hasn't stopped it. You
know, because the law can't prevent men from being what they are
by nature. And it can't cause men to be
something contrary to their nature. Only the Lord can bring that
pass. And we learn such things about
the character of God and how He deals with such things. And we are caused to fear Him.
Now all these things happen unto them for examples. And they are
written for what? Our admonition. These things
are recorded in the Word of God that we might know who He is. This God with whom we have to
deal with, He doesn't deal with sin lightly. How do we know that?
Because of what He did to His own Son who came to bear the
sin of His people. How do we know God will judge
sin? You don't need to know anything else about whether or not God
will judge sin except to look to Calvary's cross, and then
you know God will judge sin. Because if He spared not His
own Son, then how is He going not to spare those who despise
His Son and despise His way? I mean, it's an impossibility. Wherefore, let him that thinketh
he standeth take heed lest he fall." We're not supposed to
be walking along thinking, well, brother, you know, we can't do
any wrong. I mean, we can't sin, we can't
fall into this problem or that problem or think more highly
of ourselves than we ought to because if you look at all of
the people of God down through the ages, they've all failed
immeasurably in whatever they set out to do. You know, there
are scenes of triumph along the way, but all of those scenes
of triumph is because of the strength of God brought forth
in the people of God. But when you see the failures
of people of God, it's just a manifestation of what they are by nature, isn't
it? I mean, when you read about David and the many sins that
he committed, that's not... something special didn't have
to happen to David, did it? No, David just acted according
to the way David acted, because that's what's in the heart of
man, and except the Lord should restrain it, we should all be
overtaken by it. So let us all take heed lest
we think we stand, only to find that we fall. And of course,
Peter is always used as a good example of that. In fact, we
sang about him in a song a moment ago about the folly of trusting
the heart. Now, a lot of people say you've
got to trust your heart. Well, brother, that's a bad thing
to do. Don't you ever trust your heart because your heart is evilly
wicked and it will lead you astray. There is a way that seemeth right
unto man, but in there are other ways of death. So don't trust
your heart. No, there's only one in whom
your trust needs to be placed, and that's Jesus Christ. Because
any trust that's placed in Him will never fail. But you trust
your heart and you'll be led astray. So do not do it. He lets you fall if you think
you stand. Then He picks up, and I think
it's about where we stopped last week. It says, Therefore there
hath no temptation or trial but such as is common to man." All of the problems that men
have, all are common. There's nobody that's ever been
faced with something that is unique to them. Now you might
hear of some problem, trial, or trouble that's come upon somebody,
or it may have come upon you. And you may think that nobody
in the world has ever endured such a thing, but I'm telling
you there is no trial or trouble taken over you that is not common
to men. It's a common thing for men to
have all sorts of problems. So don't get to thinking, oh,
woe is me. I've got this problem. Well,
guess what? There are people all over the world that have
these problems. There is no temptation taken
you, but such is it common to man. There is no special situation. You know, whenever we get into
a bind of some kind and we are trying to explain why we did
certain things, okay. And it is not bad to talk about
why you did something, but do not fall back on it as the reason
why you did it. Because the reason why you did
it is because you are a man. You're a woman. You're just sinful
flesh. That's what you are by nature.
And there hath no trouble that's overtaken you, but is not common
to all men. It is a true thing. But the glory
of God is this, there hath no temptation taken you such as
is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not suffer,
permit, allow you to be tempted above that which you are able.
That is, He's not going to allow you to be destroyed by the trials
that come upon you. Now, they may seem to overwhelm
you, and they may come over you, and you may think you're destroyed,
but you know, if you can still open your eye, you haven't been
destroyed. If you could still call upon
the name of the Lord, you hadn't been destroyed. It may have brought
you down to the lowest low and the furthest place down, but
in Christ is our hope. And as long as a man has the
life of Christ in him, he has that hope. Now, he may not sometimes
be able to see it as clear sometimes as he does at others, but the
Lord will never forsake his people. He will always make a way that
you may escape it. He will make a way, because He
has made a way, that you may be able to bear it. And what
is that way? He said, Behold, I will send you a Comforter,
and He will lead you. Now, you know, our problem is
in the flesh we get to thinking of how we would like for the
Lord to help us through a temptation. And when the word temptation
here doesn't mean necessarily a temptation to commit a sin,
it means a trial. When the Lord was tempted, it
doesn't mean that He had some inclination towards sin because
He had none. You know, there are certain aspects
of sin that didn't appeal to the... well, no aspect of sin
appealed to the Lord. So when the Scripture says that
He was tempted in all points like as we are, it doesn't mean
that He was inclined towards it like we are, does it? I mean,
it's one thing if a drug addict is tempted to take drugs, what's
the problem there? He's got an evil inclination
in his heart towards it. I mean, you can stack up a whole
boatload of drugs right here in front of me and it wouldn't
be any temptation whatsoever to me. I'm not fixing to take
it. I don't want to take it. I'm
not interested in taking it. But to the man who is inclined
towards it, buddy, he sees something that he just can't hardly stay
away from. So when we speak about temptation,
we're not talking about the inclination towards it. But we are talking
about the trial itself. And so the Lord will make a way
that you may be able to escape because He has demonstrated that
in the Lord Jesus Christ who was tempted in all points like
as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, knowing that we have
a high priest of such a stature, let us come boldly to the throne
of grace. that we may find grace to help
in time of need, because He is such a One who can be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. And that is our escape, dear
brethren. It's not a physical escape, but
it is an escape. It is that which the Lord has
provided that we may be able to bear it. Because otherwise
we would be destroyed, would we not? I mean, if you were left
to bear your burdens, could you do it? No, because you see, the
people of God are given burdens that the world doesn't know anything
about. Now, the world sins, and they say, Boy, I wish I hadn't
have done that. But when the children of God have committed
sin, they say, Oh, woe is me, I've sinned against my Lord.
I've sinned against the One who loved me and gave Himself for
me." That's a far greater burden than the man of the world would
ever have over sin, because he doesn't think that big of a deal.
You know, I did this, I did that or whatever, and it's not that
big of a deal. But the children of God, they're
weighed down under their sin, and we would be overwhelmed by
it. We'd be crushed. If you had to
bear your sin, you couldn't do it, because Christ, is the one
who bears it for us, that we may be able to bear it. Wherefore,
my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. Now that seems kind
of odd logic in the way of the world because he just got through
saying the Lord would give you a way to escape it and then he
turns right around and says flee from idolatry. Well, He already
said we were going to do it, so why would He be telling us
to do it? Because of the fact that that's how the Lord would
exhort His people. You see, He would teach us what
sin is by those things He tells us to flee from. Wherefore, my
dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. See, the natural man, the world
says, Brother, if you're free from condemnation and nothing
can bring you under it and the Lord's going to provide you a
way to escape from all temptations, then just go on and do whatever
you want to do. But such is not the work of the
Spirit, because the Spirit would work in us to cause us to come
out from among them, as the Scripture says, and be a separate people. Touch not the unclean thing.
Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." Now what
is idolatry? Well, idolatry is anything that
causes a man to look any other place than Jesus Christ. That's
what idolatry is. It's that which would place anything
in a place of value in our mind and thought process other than
Christ. There is nothing else that makes
any difference, and anything else is idolatry. I speak as
two wise men judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we
bless, speaking specifically of the wine, drinking of the
wine as a remembrance of Christ, is it not the communion of the
blood of Christ? Do we not fellowship with Him
as we take this wine and we bless it? And the Lord blesses it and
we receive it and it is a blessed thing to us, is it not so? The bread which we break, is
it not the communion of the body of Christ in the same fashion? Is not this a true thing, He
say? For we being many on one bread
and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread."
Now he brings us back to the, he's teaching us that same lesson
again of us being all one in Christ. And he's saying, here
we come, we want to flee from idolatry. And believe me, even
the cup which we bless and the bread which we bless, we break
and bless, can become an idol. It has become an idol. It is
an idol among many who would think that by taking this it
confers some natural blessing upon them as those who teach
that this becomes the body of Christ. This becomes the actual
blood of Christ as they take it into their lips and somehow
it has a magical effect upon their their body. That's idolatry. That's exactly what it is, because
that's not what it is, dear brethren. And he says here, the cup which
we bless and break, what is the purpose of it? It's that we might
be drawn to Christ Himself. And the elements themselves are
external, though they are useful unto us. But we being many on
one bread and one body, For we are all partakers of that one
bread." So he brings us back to the whole concept of communion. We have communion with Christ,
but the purpose of communion with Christ is not singular. But the Lord would
have us to commune with one another. Because you see, the Lord communes
with His people. Now, he loves each one individually,
so much so that as we look in the Scripture, John is referred
to as the disciple whom the Lord loved. Now, that doesn't mean
that he didn't love the other disciples, but that's not... You see, the Lord is able to
love us individually, but as He loves us individually, He
loves us as a body. And as he prayed in his prayer
in the 17th chapter of John, Lord, I pray that they may be
one, even as we are one. So he prayed to his father. He
said, Father, as I am one with you, so may my people be one
with me and one another. In other words, that we might
all be seen together as brethren in Christ, not fighting against
one another or struggling for this thing that we like or that
thing that we like or whatever, but seeking to build up one another
in the most holy faith. For we being many are one bread
and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.
Behold, Israel after the flesh, are not they which eat of the
sacrifices partakers of the altar? Of course they are, because if
you Partake of those things that
you have confidence in, and you are indeed a partaker of that
sacrifice. So that is, you can't say, well,
you know, we believe in the sacrifice of Christ, but we're going to
also partake of some other sacrifice, or we're going to have some other
religious affiliation other than that. Behold Israel after the
flesh, are they not all they which eat of the sacrifice of
partakers of the altar? What say I then that the idol
is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols
is anything?" Now, so he kind of changes gears here. He says
now, on the one hand, we have one sacrifice and it's Christ.
And all of these other sacrifices that people are making, which
there were many in this particular situation because there were
pagan deities abounding and there were many sacrifices being made. And so he's saying, are those
sacrifices, do they mean anything? No. He said they don't have any
bearing at all. They can't, by touching that
sacrifice, it can't hurt you, he says. He says they're not
anything. What say I then? That the idol
is anything? I mean, if we walk by the temple
of Dagon, say in the Philistines' day, if we walked by the door
of the temple of Dagon, can Dagon do anything to us? I mean, is
Dagon going to bang us into some sort of condemnation? Is it anything? No, it's nothing. It has no power. But I say that the things which
the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to
God, and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. So he's going to go on in this.
We don't have time to get into this this morning, but he's kind
of setting the stage for what he's going to talk to them about,
about the fact that some were evidently moving towards partaking
of some of these pagan sacrifices and entering into these pagan
worship halls and places with regard to those idols. And he
said these idols don't mean anything except He said, is that what
we want to be found doing? As the followers of Christ, do
we want to be partaking of the idols which other men partake
of and give in regard to sacrifice even if it's just in their own
mind? And so he says such things to
them. You cannot drink the cup of the
Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the
Lord's table and the table of devils. You can't do it. You
can't have regard to Christ and regard to a false god. Now this is the error that many
fall into when they say, well, you know, we believe Christ is
the way, the truth, and the life. We believe He's the Savior. You know, we believe in all these
other faiths that exist in the world, and they're all trying
to get to the same place. And so, you know, they believe
what they believe, and we believe what we believe, and they're
going to wind up in a good place just like we're going to be winding
up in a good place. Listen, nobody's going to wind
up anywhere other than the place of destruction if they're not
found in Christ. Now that's the message that we
have. That's a very narrow message, but it's a very true message.
And it's a message which has been hated in all ages and is
hated in the present age. As long as you stand up and say,
everybody's doing fine and we're all going to the same place,
everybody will hug your neck and they don't care what you
preach as long as you say that. But when you start saying, look,
you know, you are going down the wrong road. And there is
only one sacrifice that is pleasing in the eyes of the Father, and
it is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the way, the truth,
and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Him. Period. End of story. No ifs, ands, and
buts about it. That's it. That's not a message
the world likes, especially the religious world. Because we want
everybody to feel good. We don't want anybody to feel
like maybe they might be going to go to hell. I mean, we don't
want that to happen. I mean, we want people to feel
good about their decision. I mean, if somebody, you know,
said that they walked down a church aisle somewhere and they were
baptized and they go to church every now and then, we don't
want them to feel like they're out in the cold. Well, they were
sincere. It hasn't got nothing to do with
sincerity. It's got to do with Christ. It's Christ. Are you in Christ? See, that's
what Paul is saying to them here. He says, Are you in Christ? The
idols are nothing. It doesn't make any difference,
but are you in Christ? And that's the message that we
have. That's the only thing we can declare. And the answer to
it in any other fashion other than Christ and Christ alone
is a false message. May we be found faithful to declare
that which is true.