Untitled Sermon (2)

Written for Your Instruction

Intro:

1. Philosopher George Santayana once said “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

2. Dale Turner, an American musician, said “Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.”

3. Baruch Spinoza, a Dutch Philosopher, said “If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”

4. We need to take the things that are written in the Old and New Testaments and learn from the mistakes of those who came before us

5. tells us these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.

I. Do not be idolaters

a. Paul quotes which is from the account of the golden calf that was made by Aaron for the Israelites right after they had come out of Egypt

b. Moses had just received the 10 commandments from God and they broke the very first two on the list

i. – you shall have no other gods before me

ii. – you shall not make any carved image and worship it

c. Paul is telling the church of Corinth to flee from idolatry

d. – talks about how idols are made by man, carried around because they cannot walk, and placed on a stand where it doesn’t move, and it doesn’t answer the cries of the people

e. We can still be guilty of idolatry

i. What about television

ii. What about money

iii. What about our families

II. Do not be indulge in sexual immorality

a. Paul quotes when the Israelites start mingling with the daughters of Moab and getting caught up with their god. God commands them to kill those who had yoked themselves to Baal of Peor, so 24,000 were put to death.

b. Paul addressed the topic of sexual immorality in telling them to flee sexual immorality. That every other sin is committed outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

c. Paul in his second letter to the church in Corinth in 12:21 says that there are many hadn’t repented and were still caught up in the same act of sexual immorality.

d. The best way to not get caught up in sexual immorality is to not practice it.

e. There’s a reason why it only belongs in the marriage relationship

III. Do not put Christ to the test

a. Paul is taking them back to where the Israelites spoke against God in the wilderness and the Lord sent serpents in among the people and many were killed. Then the Lord told Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole and whoever looks at it when they are bitten will live.

b. One commentary I read explained this testing of God as testing to discover whether God can really do certain things, especially whether he notices sin and is able to punish it (Price, pg. 349)

c. Christ himself quoted in saying not to put the Lord your God to the test

d. How often do we test God when it comes to our sin or somebody else’s?

i. Eh that’s not that bad

ii. He just did this

iii. I only do this every once in a while, surely God won’t punish a little mishap every once in a while

e. Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit and brought sin and death into the world

f. All sin is a big deal

g. – once we have died to sin we cannot live in it anymore

IV. Do not grumble

a. The last example Paul lists is the grumblings against God by the Israelites in their 40-year trek through the wilderness

i. How many times is it said that the Israelites grumbled or complained to God

ii. One of those times cost them 40-years of walking and waiting to die

b. How often do we get caught up into whining and complaining to God about our situations?

i. – do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent

ii. Do we pray for help and strength and abide in him and trust him or do we just grumble and against him throw a pity party wishing things were better and not take the necessary steps to fix the problem?

c. James tells us in chapter 1 of his letter that we need to count it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds (v. 2) then latter he says when we remain steadfast under those trial we will receive the crown of life (v. 12)

Conclusion:

1. As we read through the Bible we need to remember that those who lived before us are examples of either success or failure

2. We need to imitate those successes and learn from their failures

3. reminds us that we need to examine ourselves lest we fall in the same manner as those who served as examples to those in Corinth as well as examples to us

klm