And here in 1 Corinthians 10,
the title of our lesson is Warnings from the Wilderness. Paul gives
the church at Corinth these warnings. Now, we need to remember that
this congregation in Corinth was founded on a good foundation,
founded on the preaching of Christ, that the Apostle Paul came and
preached to them. And the Lord blessed that preaching.
He raised up a great church there. Good pastors, teachers, they
were very well taught, but they became puffed up in their knowledge. And that puffing up caused divisions
and strife amongst the people, caused some of them to live in
open sin. And Paul's writing them to warn
them, to warn them against presumption, presumption on God's grace. To
tell them in us that you can enjoy many spiritual advantages. Many blessings in this life and
miss Christ. You sure can. And the example
Paul gives them is the children of Israel who came out of Egypt.
They enjoyed advantages beyond what we can really comprehend.
The things that they saw, the miracles that they saw, the deliverance
that they experienced from the most powerful nation on earth.
Yet those people were destroyed in the wilderness outside of
Egypt because of unbelief. And the warning to us, the reminder
to us, you cannot say this often enough. Salvation is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Salvation is knowing Him, being
united to Him, having His righteousness imputed to me, having His shed
blood applied to me, having His blood wash away my sin. Salvation
is not in religion. Salvation is not in coming to
religious services and It's not in knowing doctrine. Salvation
is not in reformed behavior. Salvation is in knowing the Lord
Jesus Christ. And this warning could be very
applicable to us. I can't think of a people who
enjoy more advantages than we enjoy. Can't think of one. Not
one group of people that enjoy more advantages than this group
of people has enjoyed. You've been taught to work for
years. Some of us your entire lifetime. You've been taught
God's Word. And all that would be for nothing
unless we come to Christ. That's the warning. So here in
verse one, Paul begins, 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, it struck
me here, these people are so proud of their knowledge. And
Paul starts out telling you, I'm going to tell you something
because I don't want you to be ignorant. All this knowledge that you think
you have, you have need of a warning that you don't be ignorant. And
he's warning them that salvation is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not in your knowledge. It's not in all the other blessings
that the Lord may have given you. And the example he uses
is Israel. We know at least three million
adults left Egypt. Three million adults. Every single
one of them followed that cloudy pillar by day. Every one of them
followed that fiery pillar by night, had light at night because
of that fiery pillar. All three million of them passed
through the Red Sea on dry ground. Two of them entered the Promised
Land. Two. Because of unbelief. And that's the warning. Wasn't
in all the blessings that they had, was it? All the material,
earthly, you know, deliverance and blessings. Salvation wasn't
in seeing the miracles. They saw unbelievable things. But salvation wasn't found in
those things. Salvation is knowing Christ. Believing Christ. That's where salvation is found.
And he goes on in verse 2, he says, And all of them were baptized
unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They were baptized into
Moses, Paul says. That means that they acknowledged
Moses as leadership. They acknowledged him as their
deliverer. They acknowledged him as their
guide, the one that they would follow, their leader. And they
had Moses, didn't they? And many times they grumbled
against him. They just made life miserable for him. But they had
Moses, one of the greatest men of God to ever live. But they
didn't have Christ. So they perished in the wilderness.
But they were baptized into Moses. They were baptized into that
sea, which is a picture of believers baptism. This is what believers
baptism is, is a confession of Christ, just like they were baptized
into Moses. They acknowledged him as their
leader. When we're baptized, we're identifying with the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's my substitute. He's the
one who bore my sin and put it away. Baptism. is not what saves. Now, I remember
Henry saying this. If you're just being baptized
in order to gain salvation, all you've got is a wet center. Christ
is the one who saves. And if He saves you, you'll follow
in unbelievers baptism. You must identify with Him. Just
like the children of Israel identified with Moses. And Paul says they're
all baptized in the Red Sea. All three million of those adults
went down into the Red Sea. They went down between those
great walls of water. Now they stayed perfectly dry,
but in a sense they were immersed in that Red Sea between those
gigantic walls of water. They went down following Moses
into what looked like a watery grave. It was a watery grave
for Pharaoh and his host. They went down into that watery
grave and they came out the other side. And they turned around
and watched their enemies be destroyed when those walls came
crashing in. They were part of that miracle.
I mean, you think of seeing that wind come and cause those walls
of water, that dry land, and then watch that great army who
they were so scared of just a little bit ago, you know, they were
trying to find a way to not get all killed and watch them all
be destroyed. They watched God's deliverance
and they turned around and went out into the wilderness in unbelief. and died there in unbelief because
he didn't believe God. Salvation is not an unseen miracle. I don't think I've ever or have
seen a miracle. A few weeks ago, Holly and I
were coming home. I was following her home from
school. Picked her up from school and following her home. It was
raining. We were almost to Grayson and her car started hydroplaning.
Right in front of a car, 65 miles an hour coming straight towards
her. That car missed her. She spun around and stopped that
far from the guardrail. I'm sure she's going down that
hill. Maybe I have. I've never seen an angel. I think
I've seen evidence of one. But I've not seen a miracle like
those folks saw. Never seen one. That's not salvation. Seeing that was not salvation. Being delivered from being hit
by that car going rolling down that hill was not salvation.
That's a miracle, but that's not salvation. Salvation is believing
God. I believe Him. It's believing
Him. And that's why they didn't enter in, because of unbelief.
Now, verse 3 goes on. It says, All of them did 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. All three
million of those rebels ate manna every single day. They went to
bed at night, the manna was gone. If they tried to save it, it
was moldy in the morning. They went to bed every night
with nothing to eat and got up every morning and there was manna.
Now manna, Paul called it spiritual meat. That wasn't spiritual food.
It was a picture of spiritual bread. Christ is the true bread
from heaven. But those folks never planted
a crop. For 40 years they never planted
a crop, but they never went hungry. That manna was a miracle that
they saw every day. And they still died in the wilderness.
Because they ate the manna, but they never ate Christ. Look over
in John chapter 6. They ate the manna, but they
never ate Christ. John chapter 6 verse 31. Our fathers did eat manna in
the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven
to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father
giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God
is not it which cometh, it is he which cometh down from heaven
and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord
evermore, give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, you also
have seen me, but you believe not. Now look over in verse 48.
I am the bread of life. Your fathers, they did eat manna
in the wilderness, but they're dead because that manna wasn't
spiritual life. That bread wasn't spiritual food.
It was just physical food. They ate manna in the wilderness,
but they're dead. This is the bread which cometh down from
heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living
bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat this bread, he
shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world. See, Christ
is the true bread from heaven, and salvation is in having Him. It's eating Him. Now, that manna
was a good picture of Christ. That manna was miraculously prepared
by God. Nobody knows how God did that,
but He did, and He sent it. Christ. Nobody knows how God
somehow miraculously prepared a body, a human body, for His
Son to dwell in and send Him from heaven to feed His people.
He came as a free gift of God, just like the manna. The people
never paid for it. It was free. So is Christ free. That manna
was white. It was a picture of the holiness
of Christ. And it was just a small, round thing. The people didn't
even know what to call it. They said, it's a small, round
thing. It's manna. That's our Lord. There's no beauty about Him that
we should desire. But manna was sweet to the taste.
That's the Lord Jesus Christ. To a sinner, He's sweet to the
taste. And that manna fed all of Israel
every day. Our Lord is the spiritual bread
from heaven. He's the spiritual food for all
Israel. All spiritual Israel. Every believer,
He's all the food we ever need. And in the wilderness, the people
never went hungry. They had all the manna they needed.
All the manna they could eat was there for them every day.
Christ is all you'll ever need. He'll fill you. He's all you'll
ever need. And the people drank, ate that
manna, but they didn't eat Christ. They drank from the water that
came from that rock. And that rock was Christ. That
rock is a picture of Christ. Life-giving water flowed out
of that rock when Moses, with his rod, struck that rock. Moses' rod was the rod of the
law, the rod of justice, struck that rock and water came out.
Well, that's a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was smitten
with God's justice, with God's law. He was smitten as our substitute
and out of Him flowed life-giving water and blood to put away all
the sin of His people. And that rock produced enough
water to satisfy the thirst of three million You think about
how much water that that took. Plus their animals, plus what
they needed to wash in and so forth. All that water. I mean,
imagine. And they all drank from it, yet
on average, 205 people died every single day. That's how many people
I figured out in my calculator. How many people would it take
to add up to 3 million over the course of 40 years? 205 people. They didn't have time to bury
them all. And most of them didn't die a
common death. The earth swallowed them up. If you watch the earth open up
and swallow up a group of people that just rebelled against Moses,
how soon would it be before you did it again? But they did. The earth swallowed them up. A plague came on them. Fiery
serpents came. Fire fell from heaven. The avenging
angel came. All those things happened to
them even though they had all these miracles and blessings
that they watched happen. Because salvation is not in those
things. You can't say that often enough,
especially in our day. That's what people make religion
out to be is miracles and things. It's not things you see with
this eye. It's seeing Christ with the eye of faith and laying
hold on Him. I'll tell you this, if we're
going to find salvation, we must Come to Christ. Come to Him. Salvation is not being a five-point
calvinist. Salvation is not believing total
depravity. It's not believing man's totally
depraved. Salvation is believing I'm totally
depraved. I'm the sinner. God be merciful
to me, the sinner. Salvation is not believing that
Christ died for all of His elect. You can read the Bible and understand
that. Salvation is believing He died for me. My sin was laid
on Him. That's my hope of salvation.
He put it away through the sacrifice of Himself. Salvation is not
believing that God elected a people. You can't read the Bible and
deny God elected a people. Salvation is believing in an
unspeakable mercy. God chose me. and sent His Son
to pay for my sin. That's salvation. Salvation is
not believing that Christ is going to keep all of His elect.
You can't read the Bible and ever think God's going to lose
one of His sheep. Salvation is knowing, believing,
He'll keep me. The only way I'll ever be kept
is if Christ does. That's the only way. That's coming
to Christ. Now, verse 5. Even though they
had all these blessings, but with many of them, God was not
well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. They had all
these blessings, but they didn't please God. Well, why not? No faith. Unbelief. Without faith,
it's impossible to please God. Look over Hebrews chapter 3.
Here's why they didn't enter in. It's unbelief. Hebrews 3
verse 17. But with whom was he grieved
forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses
fell in the wilderness? And whom sware he that they should
not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So
we see they could not enter in because of unbelief." It wasn't
because God wasn't able, it was because of unbelief. Now verse
6, now these things were our example. to the intent that we
should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Scripture
is not just a collection of stories. It's not things, you know, that
we just read for our amusement. These things are written for
our learning, to point us to Christ. These things are written
so that we don't follow their example and be destroyed like
they were destroyed. So we don't lust after the things
they lusted after. And that word lust means to covet
or desire. Those children of Israel, and
this is human nature, it's not restricted to them, it's us too.
They always desired something else than what the Lord gave
them. Whatever the Lord gave them, they wanted something else.
They grumbled about being hungry, and then they complained when
the Lord gave them manna. They said, we despise this light
bread. They cried to be delivered from
Egypt, so God delivered them from Egypt, then they wanted
to go back. Just never satisfied. Look over in Numbers chapter
11. They were so ungrateful. Even Moses, who had interceded
for them, who begged God not to kill them, even Moses finally
just got fed up. Look at Numbers chapter 11 verse
4. And the mixed multitude that
was among them fell to lusting. And the children of Israel also
wept again and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? Oh, we
remember the flesh which we did eat in Egypt freely. Freely? Really? The cucumbers and the
melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. But now
our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all besides
this manna before our eyes. Now look over at verse 10. Here
they are lusting for something else. And Moses heard the people
weep throughout their families. Every man in the door of his
tent, and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly. Moses also
was displeased. And Moses said unto the Lord,
Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? And wherefore have
I not found favor in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of
all this people upon me? But what did I do that you give
these people to me? What did I do? Lusty, ungrateful, just, oh,
that's my wife says, ungrateful urchins. Wouldn't eat what God
put before them. We'll look over at verse 7 back
in our text. Neither be ye idolaters, as were
some of them. As it's written, the people sat
down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Don't turn to idolatry
the way that the children of Israel did. On the way to the
promised land, they turned to idolatry. And if we do the same,
We can expect the same results. Look over in Exodus 32. See, these things were written
for our learning. Exodus 32 verse 1. And the people saw that Moses
delayed to come down out of the mount. And the people gathered
themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Make us gods,
which shall go before us. For, as for this Moses, the man
that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what's
become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Notice,
Aaron didn't struggle with them. He didn't fight with them. He
didn't try to change their mind. He just said unto them, All right,
well, break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your
wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto
me. And all the people break off the golden earrings which
were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received
them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after
he had made it a molten calf. And they said, These be thy gods,
O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron
made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.
And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings,
and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat
and to drink, and rose up to play. Now look over at verse
28. This is the result of what happened. And the children of Levi did
according to the word of Moses, and there fell to the people
that day about 3,000 men. You see how quickly true worship
can turn to idolatry? So quickly it just turned on
a dime. And in the untrained eye, Not
much change, did it? Same priest. Same priest they
had the day before. Same altar. Same ceremonies. They offered burnt offerings.
They offered animal sacrifices. They brought peace offerings.
Everything looked the same. The ceremonies, the feast was
the same, but there's one exception. That golden calf. These be thy
gods, they said, that brought thee out of Egypt. like that
turned idolatry. And to the untrained eye, it
didn't look very different. And you know, I know that we've
studied this here in the past few chapters. You're free to
eat meat that is offered to idols and those things. You're even
free to eat that meat in the idol's temple. Look over at Psalm
chapter 1. I'll tell you this, though. That
doesn't seem like a very good idea to me. I just wouldn't even
trifle with this idolatry business. I remember the first time I really
heard Henry preach from this verse, Psalm 1, verse 1. Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. Just be mighty careful, Triflin,
with this idolatry business, because first you walk. You're
just walking by, just passing through, just visiting, just
walking. Then you stand. You stop to stand to watch, and
then you sit. You're there. You're participating. You're invested in it. You're
sitting. First you walk, and you stand, and then you sit.
And be warned, this is the warning to us, God's a jealous God. He
will not share His glory, His worship, with another. Now verse
8, back in our text, 1 Corinthians 10. Neither let us commit fornication,
As some of them committed and fell in one day, three and 20,000.
Now look over at Numbers 25. Now fornication was a common
part of the Corinthian society. It's a society that these folks
lived in and were part of. They need to be warned about
this because Israel fell into the exact same trap. Numbers
25 verse 1. And Israel abode in Shittim,
and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of
Moab. And they called the people unto sacrifices of their gods,
and the people did eat and bowed down to their gods. And Israel
joined himself unto Baal Peor, and the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Israel." You look over in verse 9, here's
the result of that. And those that died in a plague,
a plague came on them because of this whoredom and idolatry. And those that died in the plague
were 24,000, 24,000 people died in a day because of their rebellion. Now, verse 9 in our text, neither let us tempt Christ,
as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.
Now, tempt means to try the Lord's patience, to provoke Him to anger. And we do that by not trusting
Him, by not trusting His faithfulness. by not trusting His goodness,
by not trusting His grace. We tempt the Lord by not being
satisfied with His will and His way. By being critical of His
providence. One more time in Numbers. Numbers
21. This is exactly what the children
of Israel did. Numbers 21, verse 5. And the people spake against
God and against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us
out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither
is any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread. They tempted
the Lord. So, verse 6, the Lord sent fiery
serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much
people of Israel died. I was writing out, typing out
my notes, and I thought, how many times have we done the exact
same thing? Lord, why have you put me here?
Why have you brought me here? Why didn't you do this? Tempting
the Lord. Well, verse 10, neither murmuring
he, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Oh, we tempt the Lord by murmuring against him and against his servants.
And we murmur because we're not satisfied with what the Lord's
doing or what He's provided. And you think about it. Will
we murmur against the Lord what we're doing? Murmuring against
the One who gave His Son as a ransom for my soul. Murmuring against the One who
works all things together for good, to them that love God,
to them who are called according to His purpose. And Israel did
that constantly, and the destroyer came and killed a bunch of them. Well, verse 11, Now all these
things happened unto them for examples, and they are written
for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
See, these incidents aren't just stories from history, they're
written for our learning. You know the saying about those
who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Well, that's what
these are for. So we don't become doomed to
repeat their bad behavior. They're for our learning. So
we don't copy their bad attitudes and their bad judgments. Because
I'll tell you what, if we do the same thing, the Lord's going
to send the same judgment to us because here's something that's
true. He hasn't changed. And he'll deal with it the same
way. Now, verse 12. Wherefore, let him that thinketh
he standeth, take heed lest he fall." Now, here's a warning
to those who've been blessed of God and think that we stand
strong. We think we've been better taught
and we are just in a better standing than those old stiff-necked Jews
back there. Well, we do have many advantages,
and they did too. You think of the advantages that
they had, the things they saw the Lord do, just amazing things. They still fell into idolatry.
fornication and murmuring and rebellion. And we're blessed
too. And even more so. Because we
haven't seen miracles like they saw. But we have something far
better than those miracles. We've got the completed Word
of God. God sent us a pastor, teachers
to teach us God's Word. I mean, you think of the blessing
of that. Everybody doesn't have what you have. We've been given
faithful brethren to see as examples. We've been given the freedom
to worship. We've never been persecuted for worshiping God.
But this warning is to us because a person falls when they're overconfident. That's when you fall. You know,
if you're walking on the ice, but you're careful, you don't
fall. But the moment you become overconfident, that's when you
go. And we fall spiritually, we become overconfident in ourselves. And the best way to prevent falling
is to always just trust ourselves and rely completely on Christ. That'll keep you from falling.
Now, we know no believer will ever fall away from Christ and
lose your salvation. But Scripture is full of examples
that teach us you can fall. David fell. Peter fell. Children of Israel. I mean, just
like Solomon. You can fall and get skinned. You can fall and bruise yourself
up pretty good. You can fall. And bring reproach
on the gospel. I'd like to avoid that, wouldn't
you? Well, let's not trust ourselves and rely on him. That'll keep
you from falling. This warning is to us to keep
us from falling. Now, verse 13. There hath no
temptation taken you, for such is as common to man. But God
is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that
you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to
escape, that ye may be able to bear it." Now, I'm about out
of time. I am out of time. But I'm not
going to hurry through this verse. This verse is precious. These
temptations that Paul talks about at trials. Trials of body, trials
of mind, loss of loved ones, loss of friends, hardships, heartaches,
things that are disagreeable to this flesh, that's hard for
this flesh to take. And every one of them come upon
us because of sin. Sin that's in us and sin in the
world around us. And these trials, they're common
to all men. has these trials. Everybody gets
sick. The hospital's full of people. That's why there's a
shortage of nurses. Because everybody gets sick. Everybody loses loved
ones. Everybody goes through difficulties
and heartaches and hardships. The believer cannot expect to
be free from these things in this life. But there's a difference. When a child of God goes through
these things and these things come upon us, we have God's promise. This promise is not to all men,
it's to His children. We have this promise that our
Father will not send a trial harder than we can bear. He will
enable you to bear it. And He will make a way of escape.
Now, we've had a warning that it's sin to presume on God's
grace. But I'll tell you this, it's
also a sin to overly despair. Because when we overly despair,
we overly despair because we don't trust That's why we get
this way is because we don't trust him. If I trusted him,
I'd never despair. So in the midst of these warnings,
we have some words of comfort. Words of comfort that are precious
to every believer. We cling to the promise in this
verse like a drowning man clings to a life preserver. This verse
has calmed untold number of fears for God's children through the
ages. Our comfort in triumph is our Father. Who's your God? That's your comfort. Paul tells
us, first of all, he's faithful. He's faithful, that promised.
He will ever be mindful of his covenant. He will never break
his word. And he's promised to not give
you a trial heavier than you can bear. is the great deceiver. Men will
leave you and lie to you. They'll do it in a heartbeat.
You'll fail yourself. You'll fool yourself. But He
will never leave you nor forsake you. Second, our God is too wise
to make a mistake. He knows better than we do how
much we can bear. And He knows better than we do
how much of the trial we need. Henry says in his outline, you
may be tempted beyond your strength, but not beyond him. He's too
wise. He'll give you strength you never
had before. I've told you this before. You
come on a trial and you think, I can't do this. You're exactly
right. You can't. He will enable you. He'll give you grace for the
hour. That's what he says at the end of this verse, that you
may be able to bear it. He'll give the strength that's
necessary for the trial. And third, our God is omniscient. He's all powerful. Absolutely
nothing is beyond His control. This trial didn't come upon you
because God wasn't able, because He sent it. It came upon you
because He is able. He's able to send it and He's
able to deliver you. The situation looks hopeless
to us, but not to Him. And at the right time, He'll
open a way of escape. There's no valley that's so deep
and so dark, He can't bring you out. And you have this promise
from His Word. He'll do it. He'll make a way
of escape for this time. You have His promise, and that's
our combat. All right, the Lord bless you.