Episode Transcript
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First Corinthians ten versus one through fourteen. This morning, scripture speaks in various
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ways. Sometimes it speaks softly,
sometimes it speaks low, it is sometimes
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it encourages and comforts. Sometimes it
warns and threatens. Sometimes it teaches,
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sometimes it praises. It is manifold. God is manifold in the way that
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he speaks, and he always speaks
to us in ways that we can benefit
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from and that he and he uses, is by his spirit, to benefit
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us. Today we have a warning, a warning to pay attention to,
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to be aware of, to give
our our full hearts to. Let's do
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that now. As we come to
first Corinthians ten, versus one through fourteen,
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the Apostle Paul writes, for I
do not want you to be unaware,
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brothers, that our fathers were all
under the cloud and all passed through
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the sea, and all were baptized
into Moses in the cloud and in the
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sea, and all ate the same
spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual
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drink, for they drank from the
spiritual rock that followed them, and the
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Rock was Christ nevertheless, with most
of them, God was not pleased,
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for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as
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examples for us that we might not
desire evil as they did. Do not
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be idolaters, as some of them
were. As it is written, the
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people sat down to eat and drink
and rose up to play. We must
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not indulge in sexual immorality, as
some of them did, and twenty three
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thousand fell in a single day.
We must not put Christ to the test,
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as some of them did and were
destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as
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some of them did and were destroyed
by the destroyer. Now, these things
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happen to them as an example,
but they were written down for our instruction,
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on whom the end of the ages
has come. Therefore, let anyone
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who thinks he stands take heed lest
he fall. No temptation is overtaken you.
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That is not common to man.
God is faithful. He will not
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let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also
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provide the way of escape that you
may be able to endure it. Therefore,
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my beloved, flee from idolatry well
and there for this morning, you
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may be seated. Well we have
here this morning in general, even if
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you're not sure of what all the
specific things refer to. Is a very
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clear warning, don't we? We
have a warning and instruction that says this
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is how we ought to live,
or rather these are the ways that we
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ought not to live, and and
a word from God about his amazing grace
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to people that were continuously disobedient.
So we could simply stop right here and
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take home the lesson and say,
okay, I do not, I should
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not desire evil, and that would
be true. I need to flee from
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idolatry and sexual immorality, and that
would certainly be true. But we ought
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to pay attention to what Paul says
when he says I do not want you
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to be unaware. Brothers, there's
a kind of wake up call that he
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wants us, he wants us to
have or to hear, and it comes
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through paying attention to the things that
God has done in the past. In
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other words, it's not just the
specific instructions and commands that he gives to
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us, but it's these things in
the past that he wants us to know
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to learn from. They have a
powerful way of speaking to us and reminding
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us of who God is and what
he has done the history that Paul recounts
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here is the history of of God's
work, and you could put it this
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way, it's our family history.
He ascribes to these Gentile Corinthians the history
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of Israel and he calls them your
forefathers. When we look at the Old
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Testament, this is our family history. As we open up a scrap book,
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as we look through the the record
of our family, this is us
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and we ought to pay attention to
that because, Paul says, I do
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not want you to be unaware.
So what is it that Paul wants us
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to know? What do we need
to understand about the history that he recounts
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here? Well, it surrounds the
exodus. Now, when Christians talk about
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the exodus, they're usually referring to
that great event in which God brought his
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people that had become very great and
numerous but had come under slavery in Egypt,
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when he brought them out of that
slavery and took them into a promised
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land. It's a big story,
covers a lot of chapters in a lot
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happens. Paul summarizes it down,
not the whole thing, but he picks
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out a few key points to make
this larger point and the point is this.
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They all experience these blessings. The
whole people experience these blessings, rich,
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covenant spiritual blessings of God. And
yet, and yet, they were
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overthrown. God was not happy.
Was Not pleased with most of them,
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he says. It's a testimony to
God's grace and it's also a reminder that
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God is willing to act as a
father, to discipline those whom he loves.
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And so as we think about what
he did for them and as we
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regotrinize, recognize that we are a
part of this same family, we're supposed
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to remember that God will act in
similar ways with us. But let's take
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a look at some of the specifics
that he mentions here, because Paul does
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not want us to be unaware.
So let's not be unaware. What is
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the first thing he mentions? He
says he does not want us to be
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unaware that our fathers were all under
the cloud and all passed through the sea.
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What is Paul mean by this?
He's referring to the events that are
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recorded in exodus, chapters thirteen and
fourteen. To summarize, the scriptures tell
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us that, as God led the
way to the promised land. He did
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so very visibly. Imagine that you're
in Egypt. God rescues out of Egypt,
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your your out and he tells you
that there's this promised land. How
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are you going to get there?
It's very practical problem. God doesn't give
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them a map. God doesn't even
speak through Moses. Right, you might
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think that that's maybe what he would
do. Instead, what he does is
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he covers himself in a pillar of
a cloud and he leads them visibly.
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Imagine a giant cloud, a giant
pillar of a cloud that would that you
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could see. They would see this
cloud and the scriptures tell us that it
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would lead them by day and at
night it would become a pillar of fire.
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God would lead the way and night
a night, by night, in
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a pillar of fire to give them
light that they might travel by day and
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by night. An amazing thing,
can you imagine? That may have,
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but most of us have done some
desert hiking at some point, even if
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it's just, you know, from
your front door to your driveway with a
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flashlight, right to make sure there's
no snakes or whatever here. Of the
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people of God, or walking through
the wilderness with a pillar of fire leading
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the way. Do you think you
might remember that it was God who is
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leading you in a moment like this. Now, just to be clear,
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there probably were not two different clouds, but one cloud on that within light
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up with fire at night. Exodus
Forty thirty eight teaches us this when it
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simply calls it the cloud and says
the cloud of the Lord was on the
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Tabernacle by day and the fire was
in it by night, and the sight
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of all the house of Israel throughout
all their journeys, numbers nine, tells
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us that what would happen is that
this cloud would move, and when it
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moved, the people moved right and
it's God moved, the people would move,
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and then when it stopped, well, God's not leading them anywhere anymore.
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So this is where we camp,
and that might be a couple days,
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it might be a couple weeks,
it might be a month, and
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God would rest over the Tabernacle that
he had given instructions to be made,
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and that's where they would stay put. The cloud did more than this.
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It not only led them in this
way, it was also a constant reminder
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that it was God who is leading
them, keeping them and giving promises to
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them. The cloud was a comforting
and helpful presence. Some one hive.
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Hundred and thirty nine says he spread
a cloud for a covering and fire to
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give light by light by night.
The cloud also pointed to God's holiness.
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It was a covering for the people, but it was also a covering for
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God, and from it he would
speak, sometimes promises and sometimes the threatenings
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of the law so on. Ninety
seven says it was the place that God
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spoke his will to Moses, and
that's exactly what happened when this cloud descended
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on Mount Sinai. You remember that. Right when Moses went up on Mount
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Sinai, there was this giant cloud
filled with flashes of fire, lightning perhaps,
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and and God spoke with great rumblings
and terror. The people were so
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afraid that they they didn't well,
God told them not to touch it lest
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they die, and they didn't until
they made a calf. The cloud was
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a warning. It was both a
comforting presence and it was also a terrifying
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one. It spoke to God's holiness. The cloud came between Pharaoh and God's
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people as a visible warning, comfort
to the people and a warning to Pharaoh
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to leave them alone. As they
crossed the Red Sea. Now, imagine
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this. You come out of Egypt, you're coming out of Egypt, there's
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this great pit, this great pillar, a cloud and fire leading you through.
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You get to the Red Sea,
and then what happens? God parts
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the sea. The people move through. Then the cloud if fire, instead
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of staying in front of them in
this one instance, moves behind them and
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is essentially blocking Pharaoh and his armies. Can you imagine how terrifying that would
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be, or should be terrifying,
if you were Pharaoh, to all of
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a sudden have a giant cloud of
fire in your way blocking you from the
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people of God? An amazing thing. And you know when Egypt didn't listen.
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We read that quote. The Lord
in the pillar of fire and of
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cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces
and through the Egyptian forces into a panic
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and it eventually led to their destruction. And this is the event that Paul
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is referring to when he says that
our others were under the cloud and all
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passed through the sea. He's talking
about this event when, in the exodus,
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he led them out and then he
led them through the sea, protecting
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them. A spectacular, spectacular image
in which Paul reminds us how God blessed
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and protected his people. This was
not some Puffy, cute cartoon cloud in
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the sky. It was a cloud
of power and Gloria, cloud reminiscent almost
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of chariots right kicking up dust,
a giant army, just filling the air
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with with invisibility and power. God
was marking himself, he was covering himself
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in a way, but he was
also revealing himself as their divine warrior as
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he saved them through Egypt, or
from Egypt and its idolatry, through the
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water of the cloud and see.
Well, to help us understand and even
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more deeply what God was doing in
this moment, Paul then puts these events
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in terms of baptism. Just as
God uses water to mark our separation from
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slavery, a slavery to sin and
the flesh and the devil, in our
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beginning to belong to a new covenant
community, God did it exactly the same
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thing with Israel in this moment.
They just did it all together. Instead
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of being baptized one by one,
they were baptized all at once as they
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passed through this great tribulation of these
waters and they pass through safety. But
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one other difference that is mentioned here. Paul doesn't dwell on it, but
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it speaks to other important things,
is that they were not baptized into the
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name of God's son, as we
are, but they were baptized in the
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name of God's Servant Moses, which
means that these magnificent events, as grand
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and as marvelous and the spectacular as
they are, are less desirable and less
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important than the baptism God has given
you in the new covenant. Does that
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make sense to you? In other
words, if you had to choose between
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the baptism that you have, when
a Minister of the Gospel put water on
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you and baptized you in the name
of the father and the whole son and
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the Holy Spirit, that is more
desirable than this amazing event of going through
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the Red Sea with the pillar and
all that, because they were only baptized
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into Moses. They were baptized into
a covenant that would be broken. We
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are baptized into the sun, who
comes and fulfills the law for US perfectly
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and completely. Yeah, I think
on that and praise God. So this
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is what happened, right. This
is the blessings which they had here,
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Israel had as they were baptized into
Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
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That's number one. A second thing
Paul mentions is that they all ate
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the same spiritual food. So the
first thing we were reminded of was the
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work of God in the cloud and
coming through the cloud, the whole community
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was blessed and safe from the armies
of Egypt. The second thing Paul reminds
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us of is that they all ate
of the same spiritual food. Now here
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Paul's referring to events that happen in
Exodus Chapter Sixteen. To summarize what happens
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here, just a couple months,
about two and a half after these events
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that we just spoke of, still
being led by God and the pillar of
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the cloud, the people getting grumbling
against Moses and Aaron. That's a word
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that comes up right aget in the
commands of things that were not supposed to
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do. Grumble against God, and
that's what they were doing. Why were
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they were grumble? Why were they
grumbling? They're grumbling as most of the
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the same reason most of US grumble. They were hungry, right, they
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were hungry and they were wishing they
were back in Egypt. Now, being
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hungry is not a sin, right. The God designed our bodies to need
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food. The proper response, though, is to ask God to provide for
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us, to ask God to sustain
us and give us our need. And
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instead of that, they wanted to
reject God, this very one who had
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done all of these things, and
go back to Egypt, go back to
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idolatry. They were so unhappy,
as is putting it mildly, they wanted
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to kill Moses. Now, in
response to this, what did God do?
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Well, he did not strike them
dead in this instance, but instead
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he graciously rained down on them from
heaven bread enough for them all to eat
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and to have enough food for every
day. God would give them meat to
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quail in the evenings, bread in
the morning. And by this sign,
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we read God, God says,
you shall know that it was the Lord
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who brought you out of the land
of Egypt. The Egyptian gods didn't help
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in this instance. It was Yahweh
who brought them out. Next to this,
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one thousand six hundred and ten we
read that as soon as Aaron spoke
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to the whole congregation of the people
of Israel, they looked to the they
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looked toward the wilderness and behold the
glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.
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But, as with the sea,
this event that God blessed his people
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with was not just about full bellies. It was about learning who God is
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and learning to live in him,
as God tells the next generation after this
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and Deuteronomy eight, three, three, a passage that Jesus quotes during his
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temptation in the Wilderness. Speaking of
this event, he says, Moses writes,
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any humbled you and let you hunger
and fed you with Manna, which
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you did not know, nor did
your fathers know, that he might make
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you know that man does not live
by bread alone, but man lives by
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every word that comes from the mouth
of the Lord. The bread and,
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as we'll see in a moment,
the drink to they're called spiritual because they
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do spiritual things by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit being the one who
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brings the will of God to come
to pass. The Lord and Giver of
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Life, he feeds not only the
bodies of his people but also their souls.
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He uses these elements of food and
drink in the Wilderness to point the
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people to the word of God,
to the promises of God, to the
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hope of God, much as he
does now in the Lord's Supper, where
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he uses physical elements to bless our
souls by conveying in them the promises of
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Heaven, the Word of God,
the bread of life and even Christ himself.
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This is what God was doing with
his people, and so, as
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with the baptism at the sea,
so also the feeding in the Wilderness.
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We see that all of the community
was blessed. Now, if you're unfamiliar
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with these things that we're talking about, if these old testament stories are in
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familiar to you and you're feeling a
little bit overwhelmed, it's okay. It's
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okay. Let the overwhelming, I
would suggest, even be a blessing to
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you, as you are reminded of
how much there is to know about the
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Lord, how much it goes on
and on and on. They will never
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be enough time, enough space,
to contain all that God has done and
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to reflect on it all. But
let's try a little bit more and consider
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the spiritual drink that he mentions next. The events surrounding the food, as
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I mentioned, were recorded in Exodus
Chapter Sixteen. The events surrounding the drink
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Paul mentions are in exodus seventeen,
just as they found themselves hungry, and
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Exodus Sixteen, they found themselves thirsty
in exodus seventeen. As the cloud moved,
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they moved, but now they were
in a place where the cloud had
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stopped and there was no water.
A problem. Exitus seventeen too, says.
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The people quarreled with Moses and he
said give us water or they said
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give us water to drink, and
Moses said to them, why do you
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quarrel with me? Why do you
test the Lord? Again, it got
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so bad that they wanted to stone
Moses. So Moses cried to the Lord
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and the Lord answered him. He
told Moses to take his staff, the
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same staff that he had used to
touch the Nile and turn it into blood,
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the same staff that he used to
leave the people out of Egypt,
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and he was called to strike the
rock at Horeb, and out of this
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rock would come water, and not
like a little trickle, but enough water
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for all of the people to drink. Amazing. Well, this place,
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that how this happened, came to
be called Maraba, which means contention,
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or Massa, which means testing.
They tested God, they grumbled, they
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complained, they threatened, they desired
murder. All to turn back to Egypt,
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back to idolatry, back to sin. But, as numbers twenty thirteen
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tells us, it was there that
God showed himself as holy through this mighty
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act. Regarding the drink, as
with the food, he blessed people with
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the knowledge of his provision and of
His Holiness. I think this is why
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the food and the drink are called
spiritual. It's because they do spiritual things
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by the Holy Spirit God provides for
them. God gives them life and he
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directs them to theology, he directs
them to a greater understanding and of the
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knowledge of God. And again,
all the people were blessed by this.
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So let me read what Paul has
written so far. He says, I
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do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all
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under the cloud and all passed through
the sea and all were baptized into Moses
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in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food
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and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock
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that followed them, and the Rock
was Christ nevertheless, with most of them,
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God was not pleased, for they
were overthrown in the wilderness. Now,
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before we turn to verse five and
the consequences that flow from there,
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what does Paul mean by the Rock
that followed them? Some people have trouble
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this one because we have no record
in the Old Testament of a rock following
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the people of Israel. Some people
of sometimes speculated that maybe the rock that
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Moses struck somehow went with them or
something like that, but the scriptures don't
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say anything about that. So what
does Paul mean? Well, Paul tells
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us the answer. By the Rock, he is not referring to some event
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that is unknown or unrecorded in the
scriptures. He's recruit he's referring to God
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himself. He's referring to even Christ
himself, who is God. He says,
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and I'll read it again, they
drank from the spiritual rock that followed
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them, and the Rock was Christ. In other words, this blessing of
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the water, as he just spoke
about, that came from the Rock,
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was ultimately not from the rock.
God Use the Rock. It was his
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means of grace to provide for his
people, but he was the one doing
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the work. The Rock, the
capital, our rock, was the one
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to really pay attention to, and
that's what they kept forgetting. They kept
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looking at their circumstances, they kept
looking at the situation, they kept looking
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at Moses, when they should have
been looking to God, the God who
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saved them, the God who is
in the cloud, to the God who
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would rescued them out of Egypt,
the one true God. That rock was
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the one that followed them, even
Christ himself. Who is that rock?
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Now? Not only does Paul say
this here, but he does so based
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on the Old Testament scriptures, as
Greg Beale and Don Carson point out in
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their commentary on the Old Testament.
Use of the Old Testament, the New
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Testament rock or the rock as the
name of God. That's used five different
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times in Deuteronomy thirty two. So, for example, thirty two for the
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Rock. His work is perfect,
for all his ways are justice, a
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god of faithfulness and without iniquity.
Just and upright is he? Well,
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interestingly, the only other place in
Deuteronomy that that word rock is used is
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in connection with this event, with
the water of the Rock. So Deuteronomy
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eighteen we read that God brought you
water out of the Flinty Rock. So,
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in other words, in the Old
Testament itself, in Deuteronomy in particular,
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God connects his name with this event, and Paul picking up on this.
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He tells us this and he but
he adds to it. He tells
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us that this one who followed them
was God, the same God we worship
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in the person of Jesus Christ,
and with those words that rock was Christ.
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Paul teaches us why we call these
men and women of Israel are forefathers,
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because we're the same family. We're
born of the same God, guided
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by the same Lord, under the
same guide by the same Lord, in
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an Assemblar and, in a way, under the same kind of grace that
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he gives in baptism, then the
supper and the protection of the spirit,
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just as they were, and I
hope you know this, brothers and sisters.
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I want to take just a moment
to emphasize this, because so many
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people, even Christians, ignore the
Old Testament or, worse, they hated
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they think it's a wret, irrelevant
or even bad. Some false teachers even
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encourage us to stick only to the
New Testament, so as to stick with
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Christ, they say. But don't
you see, Jesus isn't just in the
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New Testament, he's here in the
old Paul says as much. The scriptures
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of the Old Testament themselves affirmness,
active with the father and the spirit,
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doing miracles, winning victories, bringing
about the salvation, just as he does
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in the new. If you wouldn't
want to skip over the accounts of Matthew,
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Mark, Luke or John, why
would you skip the accounts of Christ
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in Genesis, exodus, Leviticus,
numbers and Deuteronomy? It's true. We
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have a treasure two thirds of our
Bible. We have a treasure in the
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Old Testament and instead of being unaware
of it, as Paul Begins, let's
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learn it and learn it well,
for God is in it, even the
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Promised Messiah himself. So with that, what is the lesson that Paul wants
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us to learn here? Well,
one, as he wants us to see
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the connection. He doesn't want us
to be unaware. He also wants us
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to have a greater sense of the
blessings that we have. We are those
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who, like them, have heard
the word of God, we have been
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baptized, we have received God's meal, his spiritual food, is spiritual drink,
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and these are not small things.
They're part of his work of grace
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in our lives. They are part
of our the rescue operation that he's doing.
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I'm for US and getting us out
of the dominion of darkness and bringing
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us into the Kingdom of his son. And, as I mentioned before,
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and these things in some ways are
bigger and better than what came before.
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The Gospel is clear in them.
They are closer and anticipate the end.
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They are available to gentiles as well
as Jews. Second, Paul also wants
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us to reflect on what took place
before so that we might see and what
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happened after. Despite all of these
things, they disobeyed and God did not
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just go whatever. He punished them. He did. We read about that
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here. We read about people that
were overthrown. We breed about some of
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them. Twenty threezero people falling in
a single day. God is so patient
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with them. They're wanting to stone
Moses and he gives them meat and bread.
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He does it, though, not
because he winks at sin, not
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because he doesn't see the sin.
And there are times when God will discipline
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us, sometimes even with death,
that we might learn who he is.
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That's a hard teaching, but Paul
will say in First Corinthians Eleven, the
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next chapter, we're coming to that
some of the ways that the people were
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taking the Lord Supper was causing them
to get sick and even die. God
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adopts this family, God calls them
is chosen one, and then he treats
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them as a chosen one, as
his child. Hebrews six warns us in
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the New Testament, says beware or
less you taste and enjoy these spiritual benefits,
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these heavenly benefits, and then fall
away. God gives us these outward
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blessings, even inward blessings, but
that doesn't mean he won't discipline us as
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a father does his children. And
want to read to you a passage as
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we come to a close here,
from first Peter. This is something we've
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been studying in our west side fellowship
and I'd encourage you to attend if you're
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able. Our discussions are really enjoyable
and rich. In First Peter, Chapter
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One, we are told that God
is our father and we are we are,
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he says in Verse Fifteen. But
is he who would called you as
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holy? You also be holy in
all your conduct, since it is written
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you shall be holy for I am
holy. And if you call on him
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as father or who judges impartially according
to each one's deeds. Conduct yourselves with
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fear throughout the time of your exile. He's our father and that's not going
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to change. But knowing the kind
of father he is, that he wants
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us to be righteous, that he
wants us to be holy, that he
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wants us to be like him,
he's a good dad, a perfect father,
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that he's not going to just ignore
us when we go astray. He's
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going to chase after us and sometimes
he's going to wait let us learn our
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lessons on our own. Sometimes he's
going to give us caught, very direct
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and specific consequences so that we might
learn these things according to his father's wisdom.
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But the point Peter says here,
in line with what Paul says in
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First Corinthians, is that, knowing
who God is, knowing that he judges
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impartiality, we ought to conduct ourselves
with fear, but we also do so
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knowing something else, and Peter Continues
Knowing. He says in verse eighteen that
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you are ransomed from the feudal ways
you inherited from your forefathers, not with
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perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ,
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brothers and sisters, as one motivation
for obedience. We look at the
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grace of the Lord. God's grace
doesn't spur us on to say, well,
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now I can do whatever I want, I don't care. It doesn't
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make sense, does it, when
God has given us all of these things,
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God has adopted us as children.
God has given the very blood of
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his son to ransom us from our
sins. How much more ought we to
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be people that pursue righteousness? How
much more ought we to be people that
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reflect on His grace? We can
look at the things in the past and
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the Old Testament, the things that
happened in Christ, that Christ did for
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us in the new and let us
not desire evil anymore. Instead, let
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us put to death the deeds of
the flesh. Let them die in those
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that that watery flood right and and
and and be purified and find new life
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in Christ. Do not be idolaters, he says. Let's not indulge in
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sexual immorality. Let's not be grumblers, because God is faithful. And,
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as he concludes the section, he
says he will not let you be tempted
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beyond your ability, but with the
temptation he will provide way of escape that
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you may be able to endure it
there for my beloved flee from idolatry.
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The good news of Christ, for
those who accept it, startling an eye
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opening. The God would love his
people so much that he would die for
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them, that he would send his
only son to come into the world,
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to shed his own blood, to
be a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.
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That's what he did. That's how
we are in the place that we
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are, and because of that,
let us pursue righteousness and flee from idolatry,
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not by our own strength, because
that would be idolatrous. Let us
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flee from idolatry by looking to God
when we're hungry, when we're thirsty,
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when we're scared, when we don't
know what's going to happen next, when
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we don't know the way, instead
of turning to our own passions, instead
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of turning to our own flesh and
our own plans, let's learn to wait
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on the Lord. Ask Yourself,
is he trustworthy? Can he provide?
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Can he rescue? Can he take
care of us? And if you look
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at the Old Testament and if you
look at the New Testament, if you
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look to Christ, who is the
sum of all of these things, you
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will see that the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes. God
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is faithful. Put Your faith in
him. Let's pray.
