1 Corinthians 10:1-14
You can be seated. Turn in your copy of the scriptures to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Today we’ll be looking at verses 1 through 14. I believe in your bulletin it says we’ll end at verse 11, but We’ll go through 14 today. Next week, what I want us to do is look at, I think it is verses 12 through 14.
We want to think about temptation a little bit more specifically, sort of the nuts and bolts of temptation and how to live the Christian life. But today we want to look at this narrative, so to speak, that the apostle Paul refers back to in his life and ministry among the Corinthians Christians.
Before we read, let’s ask for God’s help and blessing. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that today you would water the hearts of those who hear your word. that you would do the work of grace necessary in our hearts, each of our hearts, to call in your children and seal and edify in each of us your gospel, your salvation. And we pray that you would command eternal blessings on every soul in here today so that we might behold you in the light of faith, we might Exalt you and ourselves be humbled in your sight and that your mighty will would be done In every aspect of our lives this we ask now in the name of Christ our Savior.
Amen this is first Corinthians chapter 10 beginning at 1 and going through 14 and The apostle Paul writing from Ephesus across the sea back to the Corinthians says, 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 23,000 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 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. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. Amen. God’s great and gracious word.
Well, in our recent studies of this Corinthian letter, we have heard several images of what the Christian life looks like. The Christian life is a foot race, one that is run. in order to win the race and achieve a crown, a wreath of glory. And of course, with the Christian, it’s not a earthly crown that will fade, that will wilt, but it’s a heavenly crown that will last forever. The Christian life is also given to us in a picture of the boxer, the fist fighter, the ring fighter. Paul will say, He does not fight as beating the air, but in a sense, every blow he gives, every swing of his fist he makes is intentional in order to win the match and therefore receive the prize. Probably more close to each of our hearts is the picture of the Christian life as a pilgrimage. We’re good Americans. We know our history.
Remember the pilgrims? They sailed over to seek a place where they could worship God and live for God without any persecution or any undue influence. And so our forefathers, the pilgrims, made their way over on the Mayflower. They made their way over in various voyages. seeking a place where they could be a city set upon a hill, a place where they could worship God and live for God without those freedoms being impinged upon.
And so pilgrims we know are those who realize this world is not their home. They are those who realize they are always on the move. They do not drive their tent stakes in too deep. They are sojourners, they are nomads, they are strangers, they are aliens. This is not their home, but they seek a better city.
The writer of Hebrews gives us in Hebrews chapter 11 and chapter 12 these very pictures running the race of the Christian faith. being alien strangers, pilgrims, and sojourners. And so these images are not strange to us if we know a little about our Bibles. But then you jump into the story of the Old Testament people.
They were a people always constantly on the move. Abraham sojourned in the promised land. He sojourned in Egypt. But he went one day to the lasting city, the city above. And on and on we go. Then we land with Israel and Egypt and they escape Pharaoh. They sojourn through the wilderness.
And that’s what Paul is speaking of today is that 40 year wilderness wandering, making their way from the evil world of Egypt through the scary world of the wilderness and into the wonderful, blessed world of the promised land, the land of Israel. Well, We understand, don’t we, that our whole life in covenant with God, our whole life in relationship with God is our looking to heaven to be where he is, yet living on earth. where there’s lots of hardship and dangers all around us.
Now some of us are new at this. Maybe we’ve been converted late in life and all this Christian life business is pretty new to us and we’re getting used to it. Others, maybe you grew up in a Christian home, you never knew any different. Now you have your own faith in Jesus and your Christian walk is your own. But wherever you are, new or old in the Christian faith, we must understand that our whole life is a pilgrimage from this earth, which is not our home, to the heavenly city, which is our everlasting home. Now, we live in the American context where a lot of times the prosperity gospel has sort of overrun us. And we hear things like, come to Jesus and all your problems go away. You can achieve sinlessness. You can achieve perfection. If you’re not doing it, you’re not doing it right. All that business.
But what is the reality that we face? What is the biblical reality of our sojourn, our pilgrimage? It’s that we live in a world that hates God and its systems consistently hate God. And those things are forced on us. We live in a world where Satan dwells, where Satan roams about seeking to deceive, devour, and destroy God’s people. But we also live with remnant sin and corruption in us. And so the reality for every believer, whatever stage of the journey to heaven we are in, the reality is the world and the flesh and the devil present constant battles for us.
It’s why that chapter we read on perseverance is so important to have in our mind and to let seep into our heart, because we need to know that though the way may be fraught with difficulty, our assurance of making it safely home is rooted in God’s covenant. It’s rooted in his oath. It’s rooted in his eternal decree. It’s not rooted in our little engine that could spirit. Right. You remember that little story? I think I can. I think I can. They’re gonna make it, gonna make it. Y’all remember that? That’s not how it works.
Yes, we lean into our salvation, but we are upheld by God’s righteous and omnipotent hand. But as we live this Christian life, we need to remember that perseverance of the saints that God graciously gives. But there’s also temptation. There’s also dealing with sin in our own lives and in the lives of others. And what God is going to say to us through Paul to the Corinthians is, yes, we’ll face temptations.
They are not anything uncommon to man. They hit all the time. And nothing will be beyond God’s strength to see you through. Nothing will be put before you without an escape, without a escape hatch, an ejection seat, a button to push, so to speak, to get out of it. But here’s our problem. Here’s the problem of the Corinthians. We sometimes get overconfident. We sometimes think I’m doing pretty well in the Christian faith. Isn’t God lucky to have me?
I mean, what a trophy of grace I am. You know, I am reading my Bible. I’m going to church. You know, my tie is straight. My tithe is in the plate. I greet people. I say hello. They like me back. You know, I say my prayers. You know how this can go. We do the things and life is just kind of bumping along. And we begin to say to ourselves, you know, I got this thing wrapped up. I ought to take this on the road. You know, seven ways to have a happy life. Right?
That’s not the way the Christian life works. And what does Paul warn to those who are overassured or overconfident? He says, take heed lest you fall. If you think you stand, take heed lest you fall. So there’s a great warning in this passage. Don’t be overconfident in this journey to heaven. Remember in weeks past, the big picture here. What’s Paul been saying? What’s he been teaching? Well, the big picture in chapters 8 through 10 is this.
In Corinth, there are temples where they offer the meat to the idols. And some in the Corinthian church are going over to the idol or to the temple and they’re having Friday night steak. What do you do with the leftover meat that the idols, you know, didn’t eat?
Well, you cook it up and you serve it. So it’s like, you know, going to Las Vegas and getting a $2.99 steak. They hope you’ll go in and worship the slot machine, right? They sucker you in. It’s like $5 pizza day at Harris Teeter. They hope you leave with a shopping cart full of groceries and they make their their money back on the pizza or the sushi or whatever day the deal is.
But anyway, there’s Christians at Corinth who are going in and eating these suppers and it’s causing weaker brothers, weaker sisters to stumble in their faith. And Paul has said, if if you know your Christian liberty, sometimes for the sake of the love of brethren, you limit your liberty. And then he went, I think a week ago or two weeks ago, he limits his own apostolic liberty, which was to receive a paycheck for his gospel work. And he says, I’ll even limit that for the sake of love so as not to cause other people to stumble.
So we’re in this big picture thing on meat offered to idols. And so you’re going to see a lot of idolatry language through the end of chapter 10. But the people in Corinth are overconfident. in their walk. They’re overconfident in their abuse of liberty. They’re hurting weaker brothers and sisters.
And you might can say this, this is a good image for our day and time. They’re skating on thin ice. Right? We know what that is. Global warming now, right? So we don’t have ponds freeze over. It’s a joke. Used to be if you wanted to go ice skating, you had to go on a frozen pond. You know, before they had these indoor rinks and you never skated on thin ice. What happened if you fell through? Well, you might fall through and get over this way where there’s no hole and they can’t break in and get you and save you.
And so you can see here where Paul is saying, Corinthians, you’re skating on thin ice here. You’re testing Jesus. You’re hurting your fellow believers. And so he’s sounding the danger warning. Now, as we get into the meat of this, I want you to think of the frequent sins of the Corinthian church, the frequent sins of the wilderness generation, and perhaps the frequent sins of believers today, including ourselves.
The sins of the Israelites in the wilderness were the same things Paul was witnessing in the life of the Corinthians. And so there’s something to teach us here to take care in our Christian life. There was something for the Corinthians out of the Old Testament. Paul tells Timothy, the Old Testament scriptures can make you wise to salvation. They can warn us of the tendencies of the human heart to go after idols and other things. And Paul says, I don’t want you to be unaware of what our forefathers struggled with, what you struggle with. And we ourselves today don’t want to be unaware We who have the blessings of the covenant, we who could be in danger of falling or being overthrown in the wilderness of this life and even destroyed by this destroyer, we should take heed as Paul tells the Corinthians. So think about this passage in a couple ways.
First, the blessings the Israelites enjoyed.
Second, the sins they committed.
Third, the warnings they were given. And then finally, the way through. I want to think just briefly about the blessings they enjoyed. If you think about the wilderness generation coming out of Egypt, they cried out to God and He heard their cries. God went to Moses and said, you’re their mediator. You’re their leader.
Met him at the burning bush. He whined and gave him an assistant. So Aaron was with him. They went and they dealt with Pharaoh. They went and led the people out of Egypt. They went across the sea on dry land. They went across the sea and then the sea closed up on the pursuing Egyptians.
They got out into the wilderness. And if you’ve ever seen or been in the Sinai wilderness, there is nothing. No 7-Eleven, no Dollar Tree, no Food Lion, no Super Walmart. There’s nothing. And so where did they get water from? A rock. Where did they get bread from? Heaven. Did their shoes last? Yes. Did their feet swell? No. Were their tunics moth-eaten? No. God cared for his people. What they worked for so hard in Egypt came freely to them in the wilderness and then much more freely and much more in number when they arrived in the promised land.
Pause for a second and think about your blessings. We’re told in one of the songs we sing from time to time, count your blessings, name them one by one. How thankful are we? We are absolutely blessed. And you think about it ultimately, God has not destroyed us. God has sent a son who died in our place, took on our sins, clothed us with his righteousness, took our unrighteousness. And all those curses that were to be directed at us were directed to Jesus on the cross. But then you think about our daily blessings, our health. The era we live in with its blessings has some curses, too, but we have so many blessings of technology, health care, longevity and all the rest.
Yet aren’t we grumblers and murmurs like the Old Testament people? We put God to the test. We cry out to God like the Israelites did in the wilderness. And we say, we’re not happy with stuff. But look at verses one through four. Our fathers were all under the cloud. Remember the cloud that led the people by day? And then at night it was a pillar of fire and it went behind them. And so if Pharaoh wanted to pursue, not only did the sea eat him up, have to get past God, have to get past Yahweh. And so our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses, into the cloud and sea.
That’s a tricky statement. They all ate the same spiritual food. They all ate the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock that was Christ. and that rock followed them and the rock was Christ. Think about this for a moment. You who sit in church today, we may not be baptized into Moses, but we are baptized into Jesus. We may not be eating water from a rock and bread from heaven, but we eat from the bread that is Jesus. We eat the bread that is from heaven indeed. We eat and drink the body. We eat and drink the blood.
We have the sacraments. We have the new covenant blessings. We have the corporate identity. We are in Christ. We have the corporate blessings of church and promises and heaven and all the rest. We also have the corporate responsibility of a life of obedience, a life of gratitude, a life of worship.
And yet, and yet, are we not like the Israelites, grumblers, complainers, idolaters, those who put the Lord to the test. So you think about the blessings they enjoyed. Here’s a challenge for us. Do take some time to count your blessings, your spiritual and eternal ones, but also your maybe localized, your temporal, your earthly blessings, all of it from God. Were it not for him, you wouldn’t have it. Think about that today. And instead of murmuring, complaining, making a list of what you wish you had, checking it twice and all the rest, think about what you have, the blessings you enjoy. Now, the next thing we want to think about, the sins they committed. It lists four sins in verses six, seven, what, eight and nine and 10. They get a bunch of verses for their sins. Big picture is, They desired evil in verse six.
These things took place as examples that we might not desire evil as they did. And then what are the four evils? They were idolaters, they were sexually immoral, they put Christ to the test, and they were grumblers. Now, I know that you know each of these stories, and especially you Wednesday night folks, because we went through numbers. and Exodus. And if you look at the first, these things took place as examples for us. We might not desire evil as they did. Numbers 11, they craved food. They didn’t like what God provided.
I can’t help but think of the Christmas story. You know, in a few weeks, you’ll watch all those because they come on TV and you’re obligated. Remember meatloaf, meatloaf, beetloaf. I think of that with Israelites, manna. manna, manna, manna, too much bread. I mean, good gracious, they were getting bread from heaven. There was not a bakery in sight, not a mill for flour in sight, and somehow they complained about bread from heaven. Now I know it gets a little old having oatmeal every day for 40 years, but you make do, right? You give thanks no matter what.
But they were, they desired evil, they craved, And isn’t that one of our struggles? These are the sins committed by them, but the sins committed by us. We crave things God does not intend for us. And what happens when we crave and we covet? We steal and we kill and we destroy. What does James say the root of our sin is? We don’t have because we don’t ask. And then we beat people till we get it. Well, verse seven goes on with their next sin. Do not be idolaters. Those who displease God break the commandment. Do you remember what the people of God did very shortly after they left Egypt? They took all their gold. And according to Aaron, this is what went down. Their gold fell in the fire and out came a calf. And then they had to sing a song to it and say, this is our God who brought us out of Egypt. So idolaters, they’re good at it. We are good at it. And then the story gets a little thicker.
We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. And 23,000 fell in a day. Now, all of this is given in context of the Corinthians. Some of them are going to prostitutes. Some of them are denying their spouse sexual privileges in marriage because of views of asceticism. So he’s saying, don’t, don’t do any of this.
Verse eight, the people did it in the old Testament, 23,000, 24,000, depending on who you ask fell in a single day. Well, what was that story? Well, the people had yoked themselves with the bail of payor. which meant they yoked themselves not only with the idols, but with the women, the prostitutes.
And it was such a thing in the sight of God that when the people came to know it, they repented. And as they were repented, one Israelite decides to go outside the camp, bring a woman back in the camp in sight of all Israel, takes her back to his family. And was it Phineas, the son of Aaron, goes into the tent and runs a spear right through the man and the woman. And Phineas is commended, isn’t he, for being zealous for the holiness of God and the purity of God’s people.
But they indulged in immorality and 23,000 fell in a day. Now you think Old Testament God, mean and ugly, right? New Testament God, nice. What about Ananias and Sapphira? What did they think? What will people think at the last day when Jesus comes? Little Jesus meek and mild, isn’t that what we say? I think he’s going to come on a white horse. I think he’s going to come with a big sword. Maybe it flames. He’s going to come in judgment.
And so we need to be careful not to make the distinction some make. Old Testament God, big and bad and mean. New Testament God, nice. No, it’s same God yesterday, today and forever. And so we ought to take warning of the sins they committed, our own sins. Verse 9 says they also put Christ to the test. Isn’t that interesting? It speaks of Christ in the Old Testament. He was present with the people as Moses led them out. Jesus was with them. And they put Christ to the test.
And some were destroyed by serpents. You remember, they grumbled and complained and committed all kinds of sins. And what happened? Snakes, poisonous ones, came into their tents, came into their camps and ate them, bit them, poisoned them, killed them. And that’s where Moses put the bronze serpent up. And anyone who looked would live. Anyone who looked would heal. That’s why we see the bronze serpent still sometimes on the side of hospitals or ambulances. We must not grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Chapter 14, chapter 16 of Numbers, the people grumbled.
The people complained, we don’t like the food. And in fact, they said, we’d love to go back to Egypt. There we had leeks and there we had onions and there we had fish and the forced labor wasn’t so bad in light of the buffet. That’s what they say. Now, our minds and our hearts need to get around this idea of the sins they committed. And we don’t need to say that was them. We’re different. We’re idolatrous. We live in a overly sexualized world. Our eyes see it. Our hearts ponder it. We grumble against the Lord.
This is America where I mean, you couldn’t make enough money to buy everything that’s offered to you. Every day our hearts are made dissatisfied with God’s providence. You don’t have all the things you want or need. And so you need to be unhappy about it and get it.
That’s why we’re in such high debt. That’s why there’s such great anxiety. We’re not content. We’re not happy. We’re grumblers and complainers. And it didn’t go well with the Israelites. It will not go well. with us, these things were written for our instruction. What about the warnings given?
You know, the Israelites had the priest, they had the prophets, they had Moses, they had a leader, they had the law. They were constantly reading God’s standard of righteousness, God’s standard of holiness. We sit in church, we have Bibles, we listen to podcasts.
How often does it go in the one ear, but it goes out the other because we say, you know, I’m worth it. I deserve it. We somehow justify these things. We can know the good thing we ought to do, but we go and do the wrong thing because somehow our warped minds and hearts, you know, we say, nah, won’t hurt.
But remember the threefold pattern of a believer. We tremble at the threatenings of God, we embrace His promises, and we yield obedience to His commands. What do we do with the warning passages of Scripture? Do we say, that was then, this is now, I’ve got Jesus. These are pretty serious warnings. 23,000 fell in a day. The earth opened up and swallowed people. Snakes came out and bit.
You say, these things don’t happen in the New Testament. Well, there’s Ananias and Sapphira. How about that? What about when we get to 1 Corinthians 11, when the Corinthians are fooling around with the Lord’s Supper? And he says, it’s why some of you are dead. That’s why some of you have fallen asleep. We need to get back in our minds and hearts that it is a terrible thing, a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God, a righteous God. These are the sins committed, the warnings given.
But what about the way through? Next week, I want to think through the nuts and bolts of temptation a little more. But what promise, what assurance does Paul give? He says, let therefore anyone who thinks he stands, anyone who’s in that position of overconfidence, let him take heed lest he fall. Now, I’m going to repeat something I said a few minutes ago.
We’re in church. We drop something in the plate. We’re here every time it opens. Our Bible is nice and neat. We’re reading table talk, listening to podcasts. We’re confessing. We’re praying. We’re just checking the boxes. And I think we can put ourselves into a sense of false assurance if we’re not careful. We need to take heed lest we fall.
There’s a humility in the Christian life, isn’t there? There’s an honesty in the Christian life. Lord, my best that I’m offering you. is but filthy rags. If it weren’t for Jesus, you wouldn’t hear me. If it weren’t for Jesus, you wouldn’t see me. If it weren’t for Jesus, I would be in the grave. And so there’s a taking heed, isn’t there?
Lest we fall. What did Paul say last study or two? He wants to be careful to run the race to win. He wants to be careful to box the boxing match in order to win the prize. He doesn’t want a DNF. He doesn’t want a did not finish. He does not want to be one who dropped out of the race.
Why did Israel in the wilderness drop out of the race? They were faithless. They rejected God and served idols. They went after other things. What’s a Christian to do with these warning passages? I mean, here we read a chapter on perseverance today and say, but I hear all this warning, all this Old Testament Israel, Corinthian stuff. What about me? I’m saved in Jesus and he promises to persevere me to the end. Well, yes. And you take the warning passages and you say, there are certainly things in my life that need to be straight.
You may be struggling with a sin and you’ve forgotten until today that yes, it is actually sin. And you should not be fooling with it. It will bite you like one of those poisonous snakes. The ground will swallow you up in death. If you carry on in it, it will not go well for you or others. if you are dabbling in sin. But here’s the other side of these warning passages. Perhaps you’re hanging around the fringes of the church, hanging around the fringes of the covenant people. You’re enjoying the glow of heaven among the company of saints.
But you haven’t yet put your faith in Jesus. This is a great day to say, boy, what a God. What a God who will deal with sin, but what a God who has dealt with it through his son, Jesus. And he offers Jesus freely to me. There’s a couple of ways you can take these warnings as a Christian. Get straight. But as an unbeliever, come to faith in Jesus.
These are weighty things. They are eternal things. They are everlasting things. And we should take heed lest we fall. Let’s pray together and ask for God’s help. Lord, what a serious thing it is to offend your holiness. What a serious thing it is to grumble at your provision. What a grave thing it is to reject the Lord Jesus. And so, Lord, thank you for faith. Thank you for help along the Christian life, the Christian way.
We pray for salvation. for all in this room today, that we may look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and that we may walk strong in him, making it to the heavenly city. Lord, let our eyes not be averted to the right or to the left, but may we walk resolute eyes on Jerusalem and hearts connected to Jesus. We pray in his great and gracious name, amen.
We want to respond to God’s word today by singing number 364. This is a version of Psalm 78 that reminds us we need to teach the generations to come of the goodness of God and the warnings of the past so that we walk in faithfulness. Let’s stand and sing together.