Transcript

1 Corinthians 10 as the Apostle Paul chiefly is answering questions and addressing excesses and concerns in the church at Corinth. Of course, all of these books of the New Testament other than the gospels, generally speaking, are epistles or letters that were written, and we know in the previous chapters, Paul has spent most of his time answering questions, or he’d hear a report about different type situations in the church, and he could call and correct them. Sometimes I think I have a challenge and sometimes the stresses of pastoring a good church that’s on track can be tremendous, but the apostle Paul seemed to continually have to deal with just all types of problems. One after the other after the other after the other, all types of abuses and excesses.

And there’s a particular problem with just foolish sinful rebellion in the church at Corinth, and as you come to chapter 10, Paul is going to address some of these type sins and rebellions and give them a warning, from the way God dealt with the nation of Israel in the past. He’s going to say that’s an example of how God deals with his people, so you need to be careful, you need to be warned about some of these sinful indulgences in your own lives. Let’s read the text and go a little bit further, alright. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, beginning in verse 1, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers”, that’s Israel, “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 were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, that we should not crave evil things as they also craved. And do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play. Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come”.

Now, Paul in the verses leading up to what… we’ve divided the Bible into chapter and verses—Paul did not—but anyway, the verses leading up to what we call chapter 10, Paul has been showing them how a committed dedicated disciple would be willing to give up his liberties and his rights in order to effectively minister for the Lord, and to be effectively received in some circles. As you get to the end of chapter 9, Paul begins to show how you have to have real discipline and self control in your life or you could risk losing the fullness of the spirit, your fellowship with God, and the ministry God’s called you to.

Now we’ve looked at all that and talked at all that, about all that. Now the apostle Paul points to particular types of behavior that will certainly disqualify one from a true walk with God, which you were saved in joy. That’s why you were saved is to know God. So he’s going to say there’s some particular sins that if you get entangled in them, it will certainly hinder your walk with the Lord, and disqualify you from any effective ministry that God’s called you to.

Now this was especially significant for the church at Corinth, because there were many in the church at Corinth who boasted about their spirituality, they boasted about their maturity in the Lord, and about how important their ministries were. As we get into spiritual gifts in a moment, Paul had to deal excessively with the spiritual gifts, because they loved the outward manifestation gifts because they were in the flesh. They loved to show how spiritual they were, and they got into great excesses there.

So Paul is about to show them: you think you’re spiritual, you think you’re mature, but some of you are practicing some of these old sins that God severely dealt with when they came up in the nation of Israel, so you’d better be careful and serve this as your warning. So he’s using here, the nation of Israel, and the way God dealt with them, as a warning to the church at Corinth.

As a matter of fact, look at verse 11. He says, “now these things happened to them, that’s the nation of Israel, as an example. And they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come”. So verse 11 is sort of a key verse, it gives you the theme of where Paul is coming from. He said, now what happened to Israel of old—now, I’m talking about the nation as a whole, not individual Israelites—but how God dealt with the nation of Israel as a whole, is an example for individual Christians today. The way God dealt with Israel nationally speaking, is the way he deals with the individual Christian today. The nation of Israel is a type of the New Testament Christian. That is—the nation is the type of the New Testament Christian, the New Testament believer is the anti-type.

Now he’s going to show us the parallels between Israel as a nation and between us as individual believers. So let’s notice these parallels or these things that we have in common. Now there are three of those we need to look at, and I’ll not get all the way through tonight. But first of all notice, both experienced a profession of faith. He’s going to show us how Israel as a nation has their profession of faith, and that corresponds with or parallels with our profession of faith as an individual believer. Now of course, when we make a profession of faith, we do it through those baptismal waters.

But notice how he shows that the nation of Israel also did this. Beginning in verse 10, he begins in the New American Standard translation with the word “for.” That’s a conjunctive word, it means it’s connected to what he’s been saying, so he’s continuing his same theme, using himself as an example and continuing to warn about things that will destroy your ministry and your effectiveness for God.

So he says, “for I do not want you to be unaware brethren”. Now I believe it’s the King James version that uses the word “ignorant brethren.” I like that word better, just because I like the way it sounds. Not saying it’s necessarily a better translation of the modern usage of English, but he just doesn’t want them to be ignorant. Ignorance is not like stupidity, ignorance just means you don’t understand, you haven’t been taught.

He said, “I don’t want you to be unaware”, I don’t want you to be ignorant about something. And he uses that phrase several times in his letters, and when Paul uses that phrase, he means to indicate something important is coming. Listen up, I’m about to tell you something. Alright.

Then he says, “hat our fathers were all”—and let’s just stop right there in a moment—that “all” indicates that all the nation of Israel came out of Egypt, following Moses, all of them were led by Moses. And he wants us to know “all” right here, because the truth of the matter is, the goal, or the ultimate plan for Israel was to make it through the wilderness and all the way to the promised land. Do you know how many individuals out of the nation of Israel made it? Out of all who came out, you know how many made it? Only two, Caleb and Joshua, made it all the way to the promised land.

So he’s pointing out something when he says “all of our fathers” came out following Moses out of Egypt. And then he says, they were all under the cloud. Now the cloud is that which was mentioned in Exodus chapters 13 and 14, when God led the nation of Israel out of Egyptian bondage during the day. There was a cloud that sheltered them from the scorching sun, and that cloud was the abiding presence of God. And we know that cloud also turned to a pillar of fire by night to guide them and to protect them. So they all went out, they knew of God’s presence and God was over them in that pillar of cloud.

And then he goes on in verse 1 and says, and “all passed through the sea”. This is the statement about the Red Sea, when they came up to the edge of the water, and you remember the Egyptian soldiers were closing in from behind, and then Moses put out his staff and the Red Sea divided and the waters stood up like walls on both sides, and the people of, the children of Israel, the whole nation marched through the sea, and then as they marched through the water closed upon the pursuing Egyptian army.

And so we have a picture there, and I’m going to go further, but a picture of a profession of faith. As a matter of fact I believe that’s a beautiful picture of water baptism. When you go down in the waters of baptism, you’ve got water on both sides and you get water over the top, don’t you? The cloud was over the top, the water was on both sides. I could not argue that dogmatically, but I believe the picture is quite clear—that’s a picture of immersion. Of course, baptism doesn’t save you, and we’re not going to camp there as being a critical issue, but if we’re going to practice baptism, I believe we ought to practice it the way the scriptures teach it, and that is by complete immersion in water. So I think he’s saying here, the nation of Israel made a profession of faith. They made a profession that they were following God’s leader Moses. And they were baptized if you will, or made that profession in much the same way that we make ours through water baptism.

He continues in verse 2 and let’s look at this. “And all were baptized into Moses”. Now that’s not what made them a child of God, any more than our baptism makes us a child of God, but it’s figurative language. They were baptized into Moses in what? In the cloud and in the sea. So the cloud and the sea was to the nation of Israel, in reference to Moses, what water baptism is to us in reference to Christ. That’s the point he’s making here. So they publicly professed faith in Moses as God’s leader, in the same way that when we go up to these baptismal waters, we profess our faith in Christ as our Lord and our leader. That is the picture and the analogy and the parallel he’s drawing. I believe the cloud over their head and the sea opening up were those vivid miraculous evidences that God was with them; they were his elect people.

When you come into these baptismal waters, whatever else you are saying, you’re saying to the people of God, “I too am one of God’s elect. I too am one of God’s people. He has redeemed me, I now profess that.” When they came out and willingly followed Moses under the cloud, willingly followed Moses through the waters of the sea, they were publicly professing, “we too are following God by following God’s leader, God’s prophet, Moses.” They were making that profession of faith. Now here’s the point Paul is making. Not only did Israel as a nation make their profession of faith, and we as individual believers make our profession of faith, he’s pointing out that they knew the true God. They saw him in the cloud. They saw his power in the sea parting. They were aware of his presence, and they publicly committed to follow God by following Moses. They knew that.

Just as we individual believers have witnessed God’s regenerating work in our heart, we’ve experienced the work of the holy spirit of God, as he took the truth of the gospel preached from the scriptures, made us aware of our sinfulness, and we received the Lord Jesus Christ as our only hope of salvation, and now the spirit bears witness with us that we’re the children of God. So Paul’s making a clear parallel analogy here, just as the nation of Israel knew God and were committed to follow him, so you as individual Christians know the Lord, and you’ve made a commitment to follow him and everybody’s seen it, you were baptized. So they both experienced or expressed a profession of faith.

Now let’s go a step further here, and secondly Paul says, both the nation of Israel and today’s individual Christian experienced a progression of fellowship. A progression of fellowship. The longer you are saved, the more you progress in knowing him, fellowshipping with him, and him revealing his presence and his reality to you. Through the ups, through the downs, through the valleys, through the trials, through the difficulties, through the sorrows, through the mountain top experiences, over and over we progress in knowing him and fellowshipping with him and just like we saw from the book of Jonah this morning, even in our season of rebellion he can use that to draw us ultimately closer to him, and have a grander and more glorious understanding of him. So he’s going to say now Israel knew the Lord and fellowshipped with him just as the individual believer knows the Lord and fellowships with him.

Let’s look at this beginning in verse 3. He says, “and all ate the same spiritual food”. Now in some translations that’s “meat”, but it’s just a general Hebrew word that means food, it doesn’t mean literal, actual meat like the beef of a cow. It just means food. Now this is referring to the experience of Exodus chapter 16, where God brought that supernatural food down from heaven called manna. And what he’s pointing out here with this food is that it had a supernatural element to it, in that it came in a supernatural way. And that is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ the way he comes and he is our food for our spiritual lives. But I believe more particularly it’s a picture of the Lord’s supper. Because what is he saying? He’s saying, you communed with God, and you’re aware of God’s presence because he supernaturally brought the food. What do we do when we partake of the Lord’s supper? The bread isn’t the Lord that we eat, the wine or the juice of the grape isn’t the Lord that we drink, but they represent God’s communion with his people. Those things represent the presence of God as he fellowships with us. And that’s what he’s pointing out here.

Now, as a matter of fact, look at verse 4. He says, “and all drank the same spiritual drink”. Now that’s referring to the fact that often, as they journeyed through the wilderness at least on three occasions, as recorded in scripture, Exodus 17, Numbers 17, and Numbers chapter 21, Moses struck the rock and the water supernaturally out of nowhere gushed out of the rock. And it was an abundant overflowing amount of water. It just pictures that Christ is our nourishment and our refreshment and our spiritual food. And what Paul is pointing out again is that the presence of the Lord was with his people Israel and he fellowshipped with them, he was there with them, and he met their need, just as we individual Christians know the presence of the Lord. He is in us in the person of the holy spirit, he walks with us, he meets our needs, he nourishes us, and he fellowships with us.

He goes on in verse 4, and says, “for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them and the rock was Christ”. Now Hebrew legend—not scripture, but Hebrew legend—says that there was an actual literal rock that tumbled along and followed them all the way through the wilderness. I just generally don’t believe that’s true. When Paul says here the rock was Christ that followed them through the wilderness, I believe he means that figuratively. In other words, the rock of security, the rock of his presence, that rock that the water gushed out of and met all of their needs, was always present with them. He’s called the rock just like he’s called the vine. He’s not literally a vine, but it’s figurative language. He’s called the Lamb of God, but he’s not a four legged creature with white wool on him. Not at all, another figurative use. But the point he’s making: these people had continually the presence and the blessing of God just as we individual believers continually enjoy the presence and the blessings of God in our life.

And I call that progressive fellowship. Now, also sometimes we mess up our fellowship by getting into sin. Not our relationship—that’s fixed forever—but our intimacy and our fellowship is sometimes messed up by sin. And he brings that out in verse 5. “Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased”. Now the word “nevertheless” is sometimes translated “but,” and the point Paul’s making with that word nevertheless is this: even though they had the presence of the Lord continually, even though he supernaturally manifested himself to them and met all of their needs and they had all of those blessings, even though that was true, the overwhelming majority willingly rebelled. Now there are those who would teach us today that if we could somehow get God to do enough miraculous outward signs and wonders, people would honor God, obey God and come to God. If that were totally true Israel would have never rebelled.

How many of you have seen a whole nation walk through a sea with water standing up on both sides? But every time you get thirsty, your leader can go hit a rock somewhere and water gushes out all over the place. You get hungry and you go to bed one night and wake up in the morning, the whole ground is covered with manna from heaven to feed you. Those are pretty supernatural, aren’t they? Pretty miraculous, but with all of that they rebelled. They rebelled. Nevertheless, even with all those blessings, God was not well pleased. Now Hodge, the very capable systematic theologian of a hundred years ago, says that they displeased God. They disappointed God, and when it says “with most of them,” that’s certainly true when you figure that only Caleb and Joshua made it to the promised land, out of what, maybe two million people? We don’t know for certain. That’s incredible.

Now, don’t try to draw an analogy here that this represents salvation. Don’t try to draw the analogy—and I know there’s some who would teach that and preach that and just go to Mars and back with that—that “well, there’s a perfect example, they’re just like Israel, didn’t work hard enough, didn’t obey enough, didn’t keep enough law, and they rebelled too much, and they were all destroyed, only Caleb and Joshua made it in. So that just shows us only a very few are going to make it to heaven.” If that’s true, you know what that means? That means Moses is in hell. That means Aaron’s in hell. And all the others who showed faith and trust, and belief in the Lord through those wilderness wanderings are in hell. I don’t believe that friend.

You cannot take individual dealings in Israel and parallel them with individual Christians, but you can take the nation as a whole. Caleb and Joshua went into the promised land, representing the nation. The nation made it. But God had to do a lot of purging, a lot of cutting. As a matter of fact, I love the way Bill Stafford talks about it. He talked about—I forgot how he put it, but anyway, it was one of these mountains, maybe like Mt. Rushmore where they were carving something out of the mountain, and a little boy or somebody was talking to the man in charge of the carving and the engraving up on that mountain, and he said, “how do you do that?” And the guy says, “why, I knock off everything that doesn’t look like the guy I’m carving up here.” And now God may do that in our wilderness wanderings. He may knock off everything that doesn’t look like Jesus.

Now that may be true. But this is not a picture of who got saved ultimately, who made it to heaven ultimately, and who did not. Now, I believe what Paul is pointing out here is that the nation of Israel believed that once they walked out of Egypt, once they entered into that fellowship or dedication to be a disciple of Moses and his teachings—he was the law giver, he was God’s leader, they were to follow him—once they entered that aspect, then it’s just going to be smooth sailing and easy going. And so the immature, untaught, and even carnal-acting Corinthian church, I believe they also thought “once we get saved, man, this thing’s just smooth sailing, it’s just a piece of cake.” It’s just intimacy with God from now on, there’s no sweat, no work, no discipline, no self denial, no giving up of what I want—just breeze on in. And Paul is pointing out here that no, true salvation is only beginning the race.

Now you’re on the team. You’re in the family, but you’re racing to be as close to the team leader as you can be and the most effective you can be for your team’s cause. But you’re on the team. Sort of like when I was in Little League—you couldn’t get off the team. Have you ever noticed that? When you get in Little Leagues, you can’t get kicked off the team. You might be the sorriest guy that ever lived, but you’ll still be on the team. You show up and they’ll put a uniform on you, you may not contribute much for the team, but you are always on it. Well, that’s sort of the way the Lord’s family is. He keeps all that is his.

Then he goes on to say verse 5, continuing with his warning here: “for they were laid low in the wilderness.” One Hebrew scholar says that phrase “laid low” means scattered and flattened like after a hurricane comes through. The nation of Israel, across the wilderness, was scattered and flattened because of their willful rebellion. Just like when a hurricane has come through. Because of their willful rebellion, their corpses were scattered across the wilderness.

This is what Numbers 14:16 tells us about the nation of Israel. It says, “because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which he promised them by oath, therefore he slaughtered them in the wilderness”. The theologian Hodge said it this way: “Their path through the desert could be traced by the bones of those who perished by the judgement of God.” So Paul makes two clear analogies. He says, first of all, the nation of Israel made a profession of faith that they were going to follow God by following God’s leader Moses. You individual believers have made a profession of faith in the waters of baptism.

Then he says Israel experienced a progression of fellowship. They saw God’s presence, and God’s sustenance, and God’s closeness—it was there, just as you individual Christians have been experiencing that progression of fellowship of God’s nearness and God’s closeness and God’s sustaining grace and love and comfort in trials and troubles.

Now he comes to the third main thing, the third main analogy. And he says: “both experienced punishment for folly”. Both experienced punishment for folly. He’s going to point out very graphically here, very vividly, how the nation of Israel experienced severe punishment from the hand of God for willful rebellion, and his analogy, his warning is: so will you as an individual believer experience severe dealings from the Lord.

Now, verse 6 is sort of a summary statement for this third point of both experiencing punishment for folly, so let’s look at verse 6, and then I’ll look at the first particular sin, or folly in their lives. Verse 6 says, “now these things happened.” What things? Well, some things he’s going to mention in the following verses. “These things happened as examples for us that we should not crave evil things, as they also craved”. The word examples is another word for types. Now I’ve talked with you many times about the typologies of the Old Testament. How Moses in some settings is a type of Christ, and how David in some settings is a type of Christ. And in this case, the nation of Israel is a type of the individual believer. The nation of Israel represents the individual believer. The nation of Israel is the type, the individual believer is the anti-type. And so he’s pointing that out very clearly.

And so he’s saying, there’s some examples here from the way God dealt with Israel, that saved folks should be warned by and therefore should avoid falling into evil. Now there are three particular sins in Israel, and God’s subsequent dealings with Israel that serve as warnings to us today, as individual believers. Now the three are idolatry, then immorality, and then insubordination. And insubordination has two sub-points.

Tonight we are just going to deal with idolatry. He begins with that one, beginning in verse 7. He says, “and do not be idolaters as some of them were.” Now the Greek scholars tell us that literally that phrase means: stop committing the sin of idolatry. Stop practicing idolatry.

Some of the believers at the church at Corinth, because it was so much a part of their background, so much a part of the lives of their family and maybe many of their friends, had somehow tried to hang on to Jesus but go back into many of the practices of the idolatry of their culture. And Paul is saying, those are completely incompatible. You cannot mix the two. Stop committing the sin of idolatry. Get out of that.

Now, the next phrase there in verse 7, where he says “the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play” is a quote of Exodus 32:6. As a matter of fact, let’s go there. Keep your Bible ribbon in 1 Corinthians 10 and go to Exodus chapter 32. That’s Genesis the first book of the Old Testament, and then Exodus chapter 32. And we have this event in the life of the nation of Israel, and how God dealt with them as an example for us today.

Exodus chapter 32, beginning in verse 1. Moses, as you are going to see, has gone up on Mt. Sinai to get the law from God. He’s been up there a long time, and the nation of Israel, the people, become very anxious and rather agitated that Moses has been gone so long. And they have a craving in their heart to have something tangible to worship. Now, the interesting thing here: as they crave for an idol, they are not saying they want to leave Jehovah. They are not saying they rebel or reject Jehovah; they just want to add the two together. They want Jehovah, but they also want a graven image; they want a carved image to attach to it. Much like Roman Catholicism does today. Roman Catholicism has much sound doctrine in their teachings, but they are, worldwide speaking, very attached to certain statues or graven images and the people are very dependent upon having that image. And that’s what the people do here. They want to worship Jehovah, they just wanted some image, because Moses is gone, and he was the physical person that they related to God, and now he’s been gone up on the mountain for so long, they’re getting anxious and wanting something to be done.

Now here’s how the story goes. Exodus 32 beginning in verse 1. “Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron”. Now Aaron’s the priest under Moses; he’s Moses’ associate pastor. And said to him, Aaron, “come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt…” See, they’ve got a problem already. They focused too much on Moses and too little on God. They’re attached too much to the messenger and the man in the office, and not to the God who put the man in the office.

They said, “Moses brought us out.” Well, that’s true, and depending on who’s saying it, it could be okay, but it wasn’t Moses who brought them out, it was God who brought them out. It was God who brought Moses over to be their leader; he was out there tending sheep, minding his own business, and a bush started burning and it wouldn’t go out. And then God said, “you’re going to go lead my people out,” and he said, “well, I can’t talk good enough.” He said, “it doesn’t matter, I’m going to do it through you.” He said, “well, that will work.” And then Moses became their leader.

But anyway, last part of verse 1: “come make us a god, Aaron, they are saying, who will go before us as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. He’s probably dead up there on that mountain somewhere.” Verse 2. And Aaron said to them, “well, tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. So he’s got this big pile of gold jewelry. Verse 4. “And he took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it into a molten calf.” And that was an idol that was very popular in Egypt, so Aaron thought, you know, we’ve got to meet the people where they are, and we’ve got to pacify this group. They probably voted—they are good Baptists—and voted and said, “let’s make a molten calf,” and Aaron said, “alright, the majority vote means God’s in it.”

Made a molten calf. Last part of verse 4, and they said, “this is your god”—now these are the people talking—”this is your god O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now you see the mixture of the two. They know God did it, but they just want some physical image to relate to and have reference to. Verse 5. “Now when Aaron saw this”, Aaron’s trying to make the best out of this situation. So very, very, very, very often—I’ll speak for us Baptists, because I know us best—when idolatry gets in the church we try to paint Christ on the outside of it. And that’s what Aaron’s going to do here. Instead of just eradicating the whole ideal and rejecting the whole sin, he tries to paint it up and make it look like God’s on it, make it look legitimate.

Here’s what he does. “Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said ‘tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD'”—capital L, O, R, D. That means the name Yahweh or Jehovah, which is the name for the true God of heaven, the true God who did bring them out. The true God who did divide the waters, the true God who did bring the manna, the true God who did call Moses. So Aaron’s thinking, it will be okay, no great harm to have the graven image here, as long as we really attach the true God to it—no great problem there. Verse 6, “So the next day they rose up early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”

I believe that sitting down to eat and drink is what they did after they offered their sacrifices. They came and brought all those animals and sacrificed them before the golden calf, and called that worshiping Jehovah. There are a lot of things going on in the world today in the name of Christianity and under the name of Jesus that are not right and not true. If you get past the veneer and you get past the altar you are going to see a pagan calf behind it all. And that’s what they are doing here. And then after they sat down to eat and drink, the Bible says “they rose up to play”, which is an expression of the dancing and celebration including sexual immorality that was often associated with pagan worship and celebrations in this day.

Verse 7. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “go down at once, for your people…” Now God says, they are not mine any more Moses, they are acting like humans now, they are acting like they come from man now. “For your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. And they have quickly turned aside from the way I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘this is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.'” And the Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.'”

Now turn to verse 25. Moses comes down and the Bible picks up in verse 25 and says, “Now when Moses saw that the people were out of control…” Listen to me very clearly. There’s a whole lot of what’s being shown on TV and you see a whole congregation full of people basically out of control, saying “God’s spirit is doing that to them.” That is consistent with pagan experience. But in New Testament teaching, there’s excitement, there’s celebration, there’s joy, but this out of control frenzied stuff that we often see is much more characteristic of pagan experience than it is Christian experience. Even the gifts of knowledge or the gifts of tongues or the gifts of prophecy, Paul goes to great lengths to say there ought to be order and decency and control, “the spirit of the prophet subject to the prophet”.

So when they come down and they’ve taken the worship of Jehovah and the things of Jehovah but mixed in pagan idolatry with it, what was one of the characteristics of them being out of the realm of true worship and worshipping the true God? Ecstasy, dancing, celebration, out of control. Now don’t make that an excuse for you not to say amen and get excited and worship. I think you know the difference between the two.

Then it says the last part of verse 25—and boy, I’d hate to be Aaron—”for Aaron had let them get out of control.” I am not an Aaron and I’m not a Moses, and I’m not in the office of prophet, but it is a sobering and awesome responsibility to know that if you guys get off track, it’s greatly my fault. I mean, as a church. If you get into heresy, if you get into false doctrine, if you get into patterns and lifestyles of sin, if I have not thoroughly and safely reproved you and rebuked you and cautioned you, God will hold me chiefly responsible. Not that he doesn’t hold you responsible. But that is an awesome responsibility. I don’t think I’m up to the task. It will take Christ in me to do that.

Verse 26. “Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, ‘whoever is for the Lord, come to me.’ And all the sons of Levi gathered together to him. And he said to them, ‘thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, every man of you put his sword upon his thigh and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’ So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day. Then Moses said, “dedicate yourselves today to the Lord, for every man has been against his son and against his brother, in order that he may bestow a blessing upon you today.'” Paul says that experience in the life of the nation of Israel, as God dealt with that nation, was written for our instruction. It was written as an example for us. That there are some sins that are totally, absolutely and completely incompatible with following Jesus Christ. And one of those sins is the sin of idolatry. Stay away from it. Don’t mingle with it, don’t mix your following of Christ with it in any way, shape or fashion. Which is what Israel of old did and what some individual believers in Corinth were doing.

Now we all know that idolatry like all sin is of the heart. Ezekiel 14:3 is a great commentary on this. Ezekiel 14:3 says, “these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity.” What a piercing phrase that is. These men have set up their idols in their hearts. Now I believe all of our hearts struggle with things that try to become first before the Lord. In all of our hearts there are things that try to rival the Lord, but it’s one thing for us to set up the idol in our hearts. That’s totally different than a man who’s trying to deal with the things that try to dethrone Christ and become the idol, the god in Christ’ place. And you and I know that if we put anyone or anything in our heart before God, that is idolatry.

One of the challenges for me is with my children. I have to discipline myself to pray for my children for God’s glory. Because your children can be an idol for your name’s sake if you’re not very careful. But if you’ll put God first for the lives of your children, they will ultimately turn out best for your name’s sake anyway. We have to be careful with all of these areas. All unbiblical concepts of God, if believed and followed, are the sin of idolatry. Churches and philosophies have made gods out of all kinds of things. They’ve made gods out of success—these guys come on TV with their video tapes and their audio tapes teaching you how to be successful. And this world who has made success an idol clamors after that stuff.

Liberal theologians and liberal pulpits today have made idols out of love. They say, if we just love mankind, then that is God, and that is the ultimate goal—man loving one another. It’s an idol. Liberal churches, liberal pulpits, and liberal theologians have made an idol out of social service. Certainly the church should be involved in a lot of that— but nonetheless, those who’ve lost the spiritual truths of scripture will make social service to man an idol. There’s so many today who’ve made self-image an idol. Just help man deal with himself, have a good self-image, and accept himself as the goal—and that’s idolatry.

Even mankind has become an idol. And it’s interesting, many that would never take a second glance at some carved image will sacrifice health, they’ll sacrifice time, they’ll sacrifice their moral standards, and everything else for the idol of recognition in this world. All these are idols. But as I said earlier, there are still physical idols in the world today. The Roman Catholic church has impact all over the globe, have people worshipping all kinds of statues every week. Now the name of Jesus is in there, the name of Jehovah God and the holding to the inspiration of scripture is there, but they have made a carved image to have as a reference point for God. That is sin. It’s idolatry. The second commandment says: “make no graven image”. There’s no image you can make that will do me justice. By faith you accept me, based on the truths and the character aspects that I reveal about myself and my word. You take those truths and formulate a picture of my truth and who I am, but make no human-defined image of me. We see it all over them—in Roman Catholicism statues of Mary, statues of the saints, statues of Jesus—it’s idolatry. And many accept it, and they call it worshipping the true God of scripture, but it’s unacceptable.

That’s what Israel was doing of old when they made the golden calf. I’m fearful that in some circles, we have made an idol of the power of God, and we’re not worshiping the person of God. This can be idolatry. Obsessed with the blessings from God, instead of loving God. That can be idolatry.

It’s just like Israel when they said, “we’ll worship Jehovah, we want the true God, we just want something physical we can connect with.” God says you don’t need that. That’s idolatry. He’s the God of spirit, and he’s the God of truth, and no picture, no statue, no physical form will ever, ever, ever do him justice.

And Paul strongly warns the church at Corinth: you’re mixing back up with that stuff again, that’s one absolute that a Christian should not be involved in. He said: take the warning, when Israel messed with idolatry—even though they mixed Jehovah worship in with it, even though they may have been sincere—they were very ignorant, and God brought severe punishment on it. The sin of idolatry.

So Paul gives us what I’ve entitled the message: some lessons from the past. He says Israel, as a nation: they made a profession of faith, you’ve made a profession of faith. They had a progression of fellowship with God, you’ve had a progression of fellowship with God. But also they experienced punishment for their folly, and you as individual believers will experience punishment for your folly—and Paul says one of the chief ones to stay away from is idolatry.

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So next he comes to the next sin that he says you’d better stay out of it will disqualify you and God will deal with you about it, and that is the sin of immorality. Now let’s look at this, this is new material, beginning in verse 8. “Nor let us act immorally as some of them did and 23, 000 fell in one day”. Now, literally the Greek text says there, let us cease committing immoralities. Some of these folks in Corinth who came out of very corrupt and immoral pasts had slipped back into it. And he’s very strongly cautioning them, get back out of that. Now these three sins that I’m going to mention, we began with idolatry, we looked at that, now we’re starting on immorality, they interlap in and are interconnected. Because you find a person that’s an idolater, almost always you are going to find immorality following right behind idolatry. They almost always go together.

Now keep your Bible ribbon in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, and turn over to Numbers 25, which records the experience in the life of the nation of Israel that Paul is referring to. Numbers chapter 25. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Chapter 25, and we’ll begin in verse 1. Numbers 25, verse 1. “Now while Israel remained at Shittam, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab”. So here they are, in a state of immorality with these pagan daughters of Moab. “For they invited the people to the sacrifice of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods”. Here they have beginning to marry and have relations with the daughters of Moab, strictly forbidden to Israelites, and even they are beginning to take, partake rather of their pagan practices.

Verse 3. “So Israel joined themselves to Ball of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel. So Moses said to the judges of Israel, each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor. Then behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his relatives a Midianite woman, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel while they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of me, of meeting. Then Phinehas the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, and he arose from the midst of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked. And those who died by the plague were 24,000”. Now Paul, when he refers back to this event says there were 23,000, I believe the difference there is 23,000 were killed ultimately by the plague, but I believe there was a thousand earlier that were killed by men being executed. Which came out to a total of 24,000, but at least 23,000 according to Paul’s understanding, died in one day.

Now here we see, not the picture of a man or a woman struggling with a, the sin of immorality, and having a, a broken heart over it and wanting to repent of it, these people were falling back into a pattern of immoralities that characterize what they were before they came to the Lord. Now this had special application to the Israelites. I meant, rather, to the church at Corinth. Because in Corinth they had a temple called the temple of Aphrodite. And to be spiritual or to worship at the temple of Aphrodite you had sexual relations with temple prostitutes. And some of these Corinthians under the so-called guise that well, an idol is nothing, and remember in earlier chapters, Paul said, don’t worry about eating meat just because that morning it was sacrificed to an idol, it doesn’t hurt the meat, the meat’s God’s, just go to the meat market and buy it, they were taking that concept and stretching it to the utter limit’s to justify going back to these pagan temples, dining in these pagan temples, and many were falling back into patterns of fornication, sexual sin.

And Paul warns them very sternly, you remember what God did to the nation of Israel. When they went back to that kind of pattern of lifestyle after they came to know the Lord, 23,000 were slain in one day. God deals very seriously with the sin of fornication, the sin of adultery, with all sexual sin. It is never, never, never, young person, moms or dads, never the will of God, that you be involved in sexual immorality. It ought to break your heart, you ought to be repentant, and I would exhort you men or exhort you ladies, or exhort you young people, if you’re in a situation and you sense that temptation, and you know you are vulnerable, you do whatever is possible to make sure you don’t expose yourself and fall into that kind of a sinful lifestyle.

God says very clearly, look what I did to Israel as a nation, I’ll also deal very severely and very thoroughly with my children. Who partake of that kind of sin. Now once again, being honest with the context, we’re talking about people who fall into that pattern. And that’s not to justify the individual act. And I can’t even, on authority of scripture tell you that God’s in the business of killing people instantly. But I do know the New Testament teaches he does remove Christians. He will and he does take the life of believers, when they get into patterns of corruption and wickedness, and he’s warned them, he’s called them, he’s reached to them, and they continue headlong, tampering, playing, toying, getting themselves in those tempting situations, knowing they are going to fall over and over, and God finally says, you’ve crossed my deadline.

That can and does happen. So Paul says, if you want to achieve all that God’s called you to achieve, you want to have true fulfillment, true satisfaction, true success, you want overflowing joy in you life, then you’ve got to fulfill God’s calling on your life. And satan is out there trying with everything he’s got to disqualify you from God’s calling. He’ll put idolatry in your life, trying to get you to worship, honor and live for things other than the Lord. He’ll put immoralities in your path, trying to get you entangled, strangled by those vicious strongholds. So that you’ll be ineffective and unavailable, and unusable by God, not to mention that God himself, has promised to deal severely with people that have these patterns of sin in your lives.

Now I’ve saved most of our time for the last one here. Not only do we see Paul using the nation of Israel as an example that churches today and church members should not be in the sin or commit the sin of idolatry, and commit the sin of sexual immorality, but thirdly the sin of insubordination. The sin of insubordination. And he begins there in 1 Corinthians 10:9. He says, “nor let us try the Lord as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents”. Now were the word try there really doesn’t mean tempt, it’s translated sometimes that way, but it really doesn’t mean tempt. It means to put God to the test. To try, to in your own way and by your own logic and understanding, you’re going to test God out, prove God, in you, either, either for good or evil intent. Putting God to the test.

Now in the scripture this word trying or testing is used at least three different ways. Let me just mention this to help us understand. First of all, the Bible does say God tests us or he tries us. He tries our patience, he tries our faith, in order that he might strengthen and build our patience and our faith. You’ve heard the old cliche, don’t pray for patience, you’ll get tribulation, you’ll get hardship. Well, God in his sovereignty, does cause and allow certain things to come our way, Hebrews tells us this, James tells us this, and these things try us in order to strengthen our faith and our patience. The Bible also speaks of satan trying us. When he puts our virtue, our convictions to the test, trying to seduce us to sin. And the Bible also, as it does here, speaks of men trying the Lord or testing the Lord.

When they try to put his patience, his faithfulness, or fidelity, or his power to the test. Remember in Acts chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira came and at that point in time, the church was severely dealing with poverty, and everybody in the church was selling everything they had and putting it in one common communion, collection there, and whoever had a need would take out of that under the elders’ oversight, and Ananias and Sapphira wanted the glory of being a great giver, so they came in and said, we’ve sold and, everything we have, and we’re giving everything we have to help the church, but really they’d kept back some privately, they were lying, they wanted the glory and exaltation before the people, and that was trying the Lord’s patience. And what did God do. He killed Ananias and Sapphira, right there in the middle of the church service, Acts chapter 5.

And we see there in Mark chapter 4, the Lord Jesus Christ is tempted or tested, if you will, in the wilderness. And what was one of the things satan tried to get him to do, to misuse supernatural power. Trying to get put on some sort of fanciful display, you jump off this temple, man, God will just send his angels to catch you, it will be a miracle, then everybody will believe on you, if you’ll just do a few miracles Jesus. Then everybody will believe. And Jesus said, “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test”. And we know men can do this to God. Trying the Lord.

We’ll not turn there, but you might want to write down Numbers 21, Numbers chapter 21, records the incident the apostle Paul refers to in verse 9 of our text. Where he says, “nor let us try the Lord as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents”. In this setting God had been sending manna from heaven on the Israelites and the Bible tells us they had excessive scorn and ingratitude in their hearts. They were being utterly ungrateful and just grumbling and complaining about this worthless un-nutritious  garbage that they were having to eat. Just, just excessively the Hebrew text tells us. And then God sent fiery serpents among them, starting biting them, they began to die. As you know Moses interceded and finally God said, well Moses, if you’ll put up a serpent on a standard, on a pole, if they’ll just look at the serpent, they’ll be healed after they have been bitten, and that’s a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact, the Lord Jesus referred to that very event. He said, if I be lifted up the way Moses lifted up the serpent on the pole. you say, brother Jeff, we know about types of Christ in the Old Testament, you telling me this snake on a stick represents Jesus. My friend, the Bible says Jesus became our sin. When he became sin he was a “snake” before his Father. He’s not, but he became that out of love for us. What a picture of Jesus that is in the Old Testament text.

Well, now let’s go to the other element of insubordination, the apostle Paul wants us to learn from that occurred in the life of the nation of Israel, and that’s verse 10. He says, “nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer”. He said, one way to get God on you, one way to get God’s chastening hand against you, is to be a grumbler. He said, remember what happened in the nation of Israel, when the grumblers grouped together to come against Moses and against God. As a matter of fact, let’s look at this one together, Numbers chapter 16. Would you turn back there with me. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Numbers chapter 16, and we’ll spend quit a few minutes here, because this is a perfect picture of a Baptist business meeting. Well, almost perfect, very close.

Now once again, it, you talking about not beating around the bush, you talking about uh, uh, down to where the rubber meet, meets the road, hitting the nail on the head, what have we been studying in 1 Corinthians about the problem the earlier problems Paul addressed. What were they doing? Gathering into little groups. Trying to act like this group was the most spiritual, this group knew what was best, they were be, and just grumbling and complaining, just sort of power plays back and forth. And so Paul is really hitting these things, and he’s actually saying I love you, I don’t want you to experience God’s discipline, I don’t want you to miss God’s calling and that fulfillment that comes from that. If you keep on in these patterns, God’s going to deal with you and you’re going to miss what God has for you as his children.

Numbers 16, beginning in verse 1. “Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took action”. Now here’s some high up muckity mucks in the nation of Israel who are getting together, and they are going to take action about this guy Moses because they are not pleased with the way Moses is leading the congregation. Verse 2. “And they rose up before Moses, together with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen in the assembly, men of renown”.

Now in verse 1 you have what I would call a private group of grumblers gathering. First of all, some key guys got together and said, don’t you all agree, this Moses guy is going too far, he, he doesn’t know God any better than we know God, he doesn’t know God’s will any better than we know, and we want to do something about this. So they began to poison a lot of people. That’s what happens in verse 2. As a matter of fact, it says, 250 key leaders, men of renown, joined in with them.

Now look at verse 3, “And they assembled together against Moses”. Now when they rebelled against Moses that was a political rebellions. Moses was the leader. Then it says, “and Aaron”. Now that represents a religious rebellion. Because Aaron and his sons were to be the only priests that ministered in the temple before God. Alright, so Moses, they rebel against him and the priest Aaron they rebel against him. And notice what they said to them, verse 3. “You have gone far enough for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst, so why do you dealt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”

Here’s what they are saying in essence. You’ve got far enough Moses, you’re out of bounds. You don’t fairly share the leadership of Israel. He said, we’re all holy. Now that’s what the liberals did in our denomination a few years ago. They stood up and said, man, we don’t’ have to honor the authority of the pastor, we don’t’ have to honor the authority of the scripture, why they said, priesthood of the believer, every man can go to God for himself, every man can get the word from God for himself, and so many of them were saying, so therefore sex before marriage isn’t bad, because I can go to God, God tells me it’s not, homosexuality is not all that bad, they were just trying to irradiate every biblical standard by saying, no priesthood of the believer, we can all go to God for ourselves. And that’s basically what this group is saying.

Moses, you’ve gone too far, you don’t share the leadership decisions, you have all the positions of authority, and all of us are holy, we could lead this thing as good as you have, we’re tired of this whole process. Verse 4. Key, key verse. “When Moses heard this, he fell on his face”. Now you can put a little statement out beside that verse that says this. That group is in big trouble. Now folks, if you get in a little group and come against God’s leader, if he’s really a man of God and he’s really biblical and his heart’s genuine and pure, and you form you a little group of grumblers and you say this thing has gone far enough, we’re going to do something about this, we think this thing ought to go in a different direction, you’d better hope the man of God doesn’t go get on his face before God.

You’d better hope he fights back in the flesh, and that happens I believe, most of the time. Because when the pastor fights back in the flesh, then you have flesh against flesh and God just sits up in heaven and laughs. But Moses is going back there, and I can just hearing Moses saying God, you remember. Back on the back side of the Median desert I was keeping sheep, fine with me, liked keeping sheep. And then this bush caught fire. And the fire didn’t go off, out. And then God you spoke to me and I told you I didn’t want to lead this group. And God you told me to lead them, so God I didn’t sign up for this, I didn’t work my way up, I didn’t get a degree to do this, you called me to do this God, and so God take care of this situation. You’d better hope, you’d better hope, if you come against God’s man and God’s church for selfish fleshly reasons, you’d better hope he doesn’t go tell God on you. That’s what Moses was doing, just going to tell God on you. Moses said fine, I’m not going to fight you, I’ll just go tell God on you.

Now look at verse 5, “And he spoke or Korah and his company, that’s all that groups that’s against him, saying, tomorrow morning the Lord will show who is His, and how is holy, and will bring near to himself; even the one whom he will choose, he will bring near to himself. Moses just said, tomorrow, God’s going to settle this thing for us”. Verse 6. “Do this; take censers for yourselves, Korah and all your company.” Now, no one was to take the censers and burn the incense before God except Aaron and his sons. They were the ones God said were to be the priests. But Moses says, you want to be the priests, you don’t like Aaron to be the priests, fine, then you start acting like priests and see what God says about it.

Verse 7, He says, “and put fire in them and lay incense upon them in the presence of the Lord tomorrow; and the man whom the Lord chooses shall be the one who is holy. You have gone far enough, you sons of Levi”. Now this is Moses rebuking them. Now earlier they said, Moses, you’ve gone far enough. Now Moses returned and says, no you couldn’t handle it if you had the leadership. I mean, Moses just lays it on them. You couldn’t handle it if you were in this position. You just think you can.

Verse 8, “Then Moses said to Korah, here now you sons of Levi, is it not enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, and do the service of the tabernacle of the lord, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them. And that he has brought you near.” That’s first part of verse 11. Now the point is, Korah and his descendants were to keep the furniture in the temple, and that was a very special and very important job. God said, it’s not enough for you that God’s given you your role and your place in his work and service, keeping the temple, keeping the furniture in the temple, you want more, you want to go above your boundary.

And then he continues, well, let me just read all of verse 10. “And that he has brought you near Korah and all your brothers, sons of Levi with you, and are you seeking for the priesthood also.” You’re responsible for the furniture now you say that’s not enough, now you want to take Aaron’s job and be the priest also. Set up your own priesthood. In one sense Moses is saying, you want to run this religion your way. You want to rule, run it the way you think is best instead of what God says is best. In other words, you’re really trying the Lord here. Are you sure, Moses saying, you sure you guys want to do this. You sure you want to try this thing, you sure this is what you want to do.

Verse 11. “Therefore, you and all your company, who are gathered together against the Lord, but as for Aaron, who is he that you grumble against him. Then Moses sent a summons to Dathan and a, Abiram, the sons of Eliab; and they, and they said, we will not come up”. Now first of all, they won’t even talk to Moses. As a matter of fact, the New Testament parallel is Titus 3:10. Titus 3:10 says, “reject a factious man after a first and second warning”. And Moses is trying to warn them here. In other words, if somebody came up in the church, they were rebel rouser, they were grumbling, they were complaining, they were getting groups together to go against the church and the church leadership, the Bible says, the elders are to go to that person one time and say, brother we love you, but you cannot keep this divisive factious spirit, pulling people aside, working against the church direction, church leadership, and then pray for him, and then if it keeps on you go back a second time, and if it keeps on you are to reject him from the congregation.

That’s God’s pattern. And I believe that’s basically what Moses is doing here. He’s warned, he said, fellows you sure you want to do this. You sure this is what you want to go through with. Well, verse 13, “Is it not enough”, now here’s these old, this group of grumblers speaking now. And they are speaking about Moses here. Verse 13, “Is it not enough that you brought us out of the land flowing with milk and honey”, they called Egypt the land flowing with milk and honey.

They called they antithesis of the promised land the promised land. Boy, what perverts, they loved the world in other words, Egypt. “You brought us up out of the land flowing with milk and honey, to have us die in the wilderness. But you would also lord it over us”. Now, now in other words they are spreading the slanderous vicious lies everywhere. Now you listen to me just for a second. If you stand for God and you live for God and you try to do what’s right, get used to people slanderously lying about you. it’s going to happen, trust me. Whether you’re a doctor or a lawyer or a superintendent or a factory worker, or a mom in the neighborhood, or a kid at school, if you’re heart’s genuine, you’re trying to do what you expect satan to raise up a group of grumblers to slanderously lie against you.

That’s what they’re doing against Moses. They are going around, all the congregation of Israel, and saying, this Moses is the one that brought us out of that wonderful blessed land we were in, and that’s not even enough, he’s going to let us die out here in the wilderness, so ya’ll better usher us into power before we all die, and that’s not even all of it, he’s just a dog gone dictator, lords it over us. Now does that not sound like a business meeting to you in a Baptist church. Now we don’t have those. But a lot of churches do. I, as a matter of fact, I won’t ask you to raise your hand, but the overwhelming majority of you came out of churches where you had to put up with stuff like that pretty regularly.

Just junk. I wish I could tell you the pastors that call me. Say, brother Jeff, what would you do. We know you have experience with problems in the church and some church discipline, I’ve got a group up right now that wants to try to vote me out next business meeting, what am I suppose to do. I say, brother, you stay like a bull dog. I say, are you preaching what’s right, are you under doctrinal heresy, he says no, I’m not. Have you got some sort of moral failure in your life that, that’s scandalous that they can point out. No I do not. Well, make them vote you out, you stay till they vote you out. Just stand, see what, and my friend. If they can get enough to vote you out, God’s going to write “Ichabod” on that place, the glory’s departed, and you don’t want to be there anyway. Don’t compromise with them, let them vote you, and that’s what they’re going to do, he’s just a dictator. They are spreading the lies, try to get the votes.

In most Baptist churches you know who votes. Are you listening to me. You know how they fire most Baptist pastors and most Baptist churches, they bring in all the knuckle heads that should have been kicked off the roll ten years ago for never showing up. Amen walls. That’s what happens in most of them. All those guys come in, filled full of the lies and then they vote the pastor out. Now don’t get me wrong, some pastors need to be voted out. But if he’s preaching truth the best he understands it, he don’t have a moral failure in his life, you’d better keep your hands off the man of God.

Now you can come reprove the pastor, rebuke the pastor I private, I welcome that. man, if I’m doing something wrong I want you to. You owe it to me to do that. But bring an open Bible, I don’t want your opinion. You show me from the word I want you, and our pastors council have done that, some of ya’ll tease and say, well, they’re just yes men. Well, they are yes I love Jesus, yes I love the word, yes I love missions, yes I love soul winning, they are yes that way, but they’ve also checked me and asked me and held me accountable, and I like that. And I appreciate that, that’s what they are suppose to do.

Well, let’s hurry on. Verse 14, they continue with their lies about Moses. “Indeed, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor have you given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Would you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up”. Now what he’s saying is, you’ll, you’ll try to keep these men blind. You’ll, you’ll lie to these followers of ours and tell them lies so we’re not going to let them come up and be exposed to you. They wouldn’t even let Moses address a lot of their followers. Said, you’ll try to cover up your true intentions and try to keep these people blind.

Now that’s what they are accusing Moses of. Verse 15. “Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, do not regard their offering”. Now you know earlier Moses has already said, you’re not suppose to be the priests, but if you insist on it, just bring your incense and offer up those incense offerings to the Lord. Moses says, alright, let’s get this thing settled, you guys going to be this obstinate, and this stiff necked, just go ahead and bring in your offerings, and he says, God do not regard their offering. Continuing in verse 15, “I have not take a single donkey from them, nor have I done harm to any of them”. Moses is saying, God as far as I know I haven’t mistreated any of these people.

I’ve only done what you’ve told me to do. Verse 16, “And Moses said to Korah, you and all your company be present before the Lord tomorrow, both you and they along with Moses. And each of you take his firepan and put incense on it, and each of you bring his censer before the Lord, two hundred and fifty firepans; also you and Aaron shall each bring his firepan”. Now once again, Aaron and his sons were the only ones that were suppose to do this. But since they were insisting on leading and being the priests also, Moses said fine, you bring it in and act like the priest and we’ll see what God says.

Verse 18, “So they each took his own censer and put fire on it, and laid incense on it; and they stood t the doorway of the tent of me, meting, with Moses and Aaron. Thus Korah assembled all the congregation”, look how many they had influenced. You listen to me, satan and his imps and rebellious men can easily influence the majority of most churches. Easily. With their lies, their deception, their slander, their misinformation, their twisting of the fact, easily mislead. As a matter of fact, now that doesn’t means absolutely every single person in the congregation, but it means a whole bunch of them when it says “Korah got the all the congregation against them at the doorway of the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation”.

Verse 20, “Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, separate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them instantly”. Notice Moses and Aaron realizing there were some innocent people, some immature believers who had just been misled. Therefore Moses and Aaron verse 22 said, “but they fell on their face and said, oh God, thou God of the spirit’s of all flesh, when one man sins, wilt thou be angry with the entire congregation”. Now church, you know what that means to us. If there every come a time, thank God we’ve had many, many years, not a trace of anything like this.

But if something like this rose up, you can be sure a lot of immature, baby Christians are going to be misled. And like Moses went to God on behalf of them, we ought to get to those people and try to tell them what’s right. Aggressively go after and spare and protect those. That are really innocent and just been misled.

Verse 23, “then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the congregation saying, get back from away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Then Moses arose and went to Dathan and Abiram, with the elders of Israel following him, and he spoke to the congregation saying, depart now from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing that belongs to them, lest you be swept away in all their sin. So they got back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the doorway of their tents, along with their wives and their sons and their little ones. And Moses said, by this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is no my doing. If these men die the death of all men, or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens it’s mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs and they descend alive down into Sheol, the place of the dead, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord. Then it came about as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened it’s mouth and swallowed them up, and their households and all the men who belonged to Korah with their possession. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. And all Israel who around them fled at their outcry, for they said, the earth may swallow us up. Fire also came from the lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering the incense”.

Moses said, well, we’ve tried, we’ve warned, we’ve done all we can do, he gave it to God, God opened up the earth, leaping flames of fire reached up and grabbed those men, those women, those children, swallowed them alive, whole, to death they went, the center of the earth. And Moses in essence stood up and said, now who do you reckon God wants to lead this thing. Now listen to me very carefully. If you get in the flesh and you come against God’s work and God’s man whose trying to do what’s right, you can bet, you are going to be exposed and ashamed and removed. Now I’m not saying God just comes up and kills folks like this. He may. But you can bet you’ll be exposed, you’ll have shame on your name, and you’ll be removed, some how , some way.

Listen, Jesus cares about this bride a lot more than I do. Jesus cares about his church a lot more than I do. And he’s in the business of protecting it from wicked, self seeking, self glorification people who want to manipulate the church to their own ends and to their own glory. Then one final verse, Numbers 17:5 “And it will come about that the rod of the man who might choose will sprout”, now this was, this was a vindication of Aaron’s leadership, all the ones who said they want to be priests put their rods in and Aaron put his rod in and Moses said, now the rod that buds will be the one that God’s called into the priesthood, and of course, Aaron’s rod was the rod that budded.

And so that’s what they are referring to when it says in verse 5, “and it will come about that the rod of the man whom I choose will sprout, thus I shall lessen from upon myself the grumblings of the sons of Israel, who are grumbling against you”. Now that’s an incredible statement. God says, I’m going to lessen their burden on me because they’re groaning against you. And God’s point was, when you come against my people and my leader, you come against me. And I don’t’ like you coming against me. I want you off of me, I want the burden off. And that’s the way he words it.

And so the apostle Paul says very, very clearly, church, individual Christians, from the life of the nation of Israel, don’t catch yourself as an idolater. From the experiences and the examples set by us from the nation of Israel, don’t you fall into sexual immorality. Run from it, repent of it, stay away from the temptation of it. And from the example of the nation of Israel, don’t fall into grumbling and gathering in groups and coming against God and God’s leader. Don’t let it happen.

Now I guess all of us could catch ourselves grumbling from time to time. But then God gets ahold of our hearts. it’s something else to grumble and form a group. And come against God and God’s leader. That’s a big difference. Paul says, I want to caution you, if you’re going to be used of God, you want to be blessed, you want to have a full and abundant life, you need to know that there will be times that you need to give up your rights for the effectiveness of your ministry that God’s called you to. There will be discipline and dedication needed. And then there are also some clear sins that disqualify you from all that God wants to call you to be. And call you to do for his glory.