The Past Present
Notes
Transcript
Our Scripture text this morning is taken from 1 Corinthians 10:1-13:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
May God bless this, the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
As Paul continues to address the controversy surrounding the consumption of meat sacrificed to idols, he drops a theological and interpretive bombshell—God has crafted the past to teach us in the present.
God Crafted the Past to Teach Us in the Present
God Crafted the Past to Teach Us in the Present
While speaking of Israel’s wilderness journeys, Paul says this:
Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.
It is clear from this passage, and many others in the New Testament, that Israel’s past was not merely a fortuitous example for us, but that it is an example by design. There is a divine intention to history.
Moreover, this is a Christocentric history; the manna and the water from the rock are not simply supernatural miracles, but they were miracles designed to point us to Christ. This is seen in 1 Cor 10:1-4. Let us look at those verses again:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
In these verses, Paul is drawing a parallel between Moses and Jesus, passing through the Red Sea and baptism, eating manna and drinking water from the Rock and the Lord’s Supper. In addition, Paul is claiming that Christ was present with Israel in the Exodus.
Paul says this because Christ, as the Second member of the Godhead, is the eternal revelation of God. We see this very clearly in John’s prologue to his gospel. Let us take a look at this familiar passage:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
Jesus is the eternal Word. In other words, He is the eternal revelation of God. Without divine revelation, there is no possible way human (or angels, for that matter) could know anything about God. Sixteen verses later, John writes this:
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
In his first letter to Timothy, Paul writes:
who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
This is one of the reason the making of graven images is forbidden by God. Jesus is the only image of God, we cannot and we must not make any other!
I hope you realize how important all of this is. The people, the institutions and all of the history of the Old Testament are designed by God to teach us and point us to Christ. Moreover, whenever we see God visibly manifesting Himself in the Old Testament, be it the Angel of the Lord, the Burning Bush, the Pillar of Fire, the Cloud of Glory or the Rock, it was Christ!
With this theological and interpretive bombshell being established, Paul then moves on to the application, and the first thing he does is teach us that...
The Past Warns Us of the Danger of Idolatry
The Past Warns Us of the Danger of Idolatry
This is the sin that Israel so easily fell into and it is the sin we can easily fall into as well.
I want to stress the word “easy,” because by human judgement we would assume it would be hard for Israel in the Wilderness and the Church of today to fall into idolatry. Just take Israel as an example:
What has Israel just seen and experienced?
They have just seen and experienced the Seven Plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the miracles of manna and water from a dry rock. They have seen the Pillar of Smoke by day and Fire by night. They witnessed the Cloud of Glory descending upon Mt. Sinai and heard God’s voice thunder from the Cloud!
Ponder these things. If you are anything like me, the first time I read through the Bible, I was amazed by Israel’s unbelief. It did not make any sense to me. How often had I heard other people say, “If I could just see a miracle, I would believe.” How often have I said the same thing to myself, but here we are in the face of amazing unbelief!
Now we come to the point that Paul is trying to make, some of the Corinthians thought because of the amazing experiences of God grace and power they had experienced that they were immune to unbelief and sin. Oh, how wrong they were!
1 Corinthians 10:12 (ESV)
Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
Back in vs. 6, Paul identifies the root cause of idolatry—evil desires! Paul associates three sins with idolatry. They are, sexual immorality, putting Christ to the test and grumbling. This is not by accident because these three things were always present in ancient idol worship. The “meals” being held in the Greek and Roman temples were not the ancient equivalent of “Rotary Club” dinners; no, they were gluttonous, drunken orgies! This is what Paul is referring to in vs. 7:
Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
This association of idolatry with unbridled and illicit desires is not limited only to the ancient world it goes much deeper. I want to read to you a verse, which the first time I really understood it opened my eyes to the sinfulness of sin.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
What is covetousness; is it not the lack of thankfulness and contentment with what God has provided? The fornicator is not content with not having a spouse. The adulterous in not content with the spouse God has provided. The homosexual is not content with the gender with which God has assigned them. Israel was not content with the manna and water God provided. I could go on, but I think you get the point. The “grumbling” and “putting God to the test” our text refers to is pointing to an idolatrous hearts that have set food, drink and sex above God.
Now do you see what I mean by “my eyes being opened”? We live in an idolatrous society because our society is covetous. Is it not interesting that the two most tolerated sins in our society are envy and blasphemy? It is impossible to watch a TV show or movie without hearing the Lord’s name being used in vain dozens of times. Envy has been codified in the “American Dream” of “keeping up with the Jones's”. Our retail economy is built on creating a lack of contentment with what one has; it is frightening to realize just how idolatrous we really are.
At this point, I am sure the Corinthians when they first heard this letter read to them felt a little shaken. They started off so self-confident that they would even dare eat at one of these pagan “meals” at the local temple, but now they clearly saw the depth of human depravity. I hope you feel a little shaken as well.
It is at this point that Paul points us to the preserving grace of God.
The Past Assures Us of God’s Preserving Grace
The Past Assures Us of God’s Preserving Grace
We write history by look back at the past. From our text today, we have learned that God writes history by looking to the future. When Paul writes in vs. 6, that “these things took place as examples to us,” he is saying history was written with the glorification of the saints in mind. When Paul writes to the Ephesians that God “chose us in Christ before the foundations of the world” (Eph 1:4), He saying that predestination in not based on God looking back on history to discover who will believe, but upon His free choice and then writing history to insure the final salvation of the elect! This is his point in verse 13:
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
I want you to give special attention to the words “he will also provide the way of escape”. What way of escape has God provided? According to Paul, the example of Israel in the Wilderness, and couldn’t we add Paul’s writing this letter, and couldn’t we add my preaching the sermon this morning? None of these things has happened by chance, God has ordained them. All these things and many others are a part of God preserving grace.
God loves to use ordinary means, such as reading the Old Testament stories, reading Paul’s letters, hearing a sermon or attending a Bible study. I am not saying God is not working in super natural ways to preserve our faith, but as we see so clearly from the example of Israel, miracles are not all that they are cut out to be. One would presume that after witnessing all the miracles of the Exodus, Israel’s faith would be rock solid, but this is not the case, “most of them,” Paul writes in vs.5, “were overthrown in the wilderness”.
Some of them however, looked to a better and more sure Rock, that is they look to Christ in faith and they were not “overthrown”!
Brothers and sisters, God has predestined us not through bypassing the ordinary means of grace, but through them. Let us learn from that righteous minority in the wilderness looked to Christ as their Rock of Salvation. That Rock is the Solid Rock!