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Good morning friends, today is Tuesday June 18, and we’re reading 1 Corinthians 10 together, as we are trying to immerse ourselves in 1 chapter of God’s Word every day this summer.
May I urge us to begin with vs. 12 & 13, you may have memorized these in your younger years: “So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful: He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, God will also provide a way of escape, so that you can stand up under it.” Sound familiar?
Now let’s start in verse 1 and follow the path to these famous verses of great promise. You’ll recognize Paul’s references to the familiar history of Moses and 1 million Hebrew slaves fleeing out of their slavery in Egypt. God kept them together as a people under a great cloud by day, as He led them, and gave them shade from the blistering desert sun. Don’t let verse 2 trouble you when Paul speaks of the people being “baptized” into Moses. It means they were united together by Moses and obediently following him, as he was following God’s leading.
Verse 3 reminds us they both ate, as God provided daily bread, called manna (Exodus 16), and drank, as God provided water, sometimes from a rock like in Exodus 17, sometimes it was a bitter lake turned sweet like Exodus 15. But more than that, they were experiencing a SPIRITUAL nourishing as God met them at Mount Sinai, and spoke His 10 Commandments to them, which defined their relationship with God, and set them apart from every other people in the world.
God met Moses on the top of Sinai not once, but several times, and gave Moses instructions for the construction of a mobile Tabernacle, so God could reside among His people (Exodus 29:42-46). He wanted to meet with them and BE with them. By God’s design it was to be a utopia… God among His people and His people following Him wholeheartedly.
Do you notice verse 4? In a masterful way Paul is weaving together familiar Jewish history of manna, water from a rock, cloud, open door through the Red Sea… with an important truth as seen from the days of Paul’s perspective, the days shortly after Jesus: God was with those Hebrew slaves as they fled Egypt, in the person of Jesus Christ, even though they did not see His physical body, as their descendants did when Jesus physically walked among them in the days of Paul. I see it in Exodus 14 as they fled Egypt, it says “Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them…coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel….all that night the LORD drove the sea back, with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land… He made the wheels of the chariots come off…and the Egyptians said “let’s get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt.”
So WHO is doing all this amazing and powerful work, to help the fleeing, helpless Hebrew slaves? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:4 JESUS was there. He was the one! He says “…for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” Let’s remove from our minds the idea that Jesus, the second person of the Godhead, BEGAN with His birth in Bethlehem. Oh no friends, Jesus is FULLY God, and has been an active part of all God has done from before time began… eternity. When He came to earth, He took on human flesh, so He could live visibly among us, teach us God’s truth, and die on the cross, and the rise again, and then visibly return to heaven, where He continues His eternal reign. We understand that, right? But Paul is telling us it wasn’t the first time He came here, it was the first VISIBLE time He came here!But do you remember what happened back there with those 1 million Hebrew slaves and Moses? Over and over those Hebrew slaves turned away from God, even though He was among them. They grumbled. They asked Moses to take them back to Egypt. (Numbers 11). They refused to believe God could lead them into and conquer the promised land (Numbers 13&14). They rejected Moses’ leadership (Number 16) and they even built a golden calf idol and called it their god who had delivered them from Egypt (Exodus 32)!! And God responded to all of this with judgement, remember? They were destined to wander 40 years in the desert until that faithless, rebellious generation died. That’s what Paul refers to in verse 5 of 1 Corinthians 10.
We see how Paul uses verses 6-11 to call the Corinthian Christians to learn important lessons from the recorded history of the Old Testament journey of God with His people Israel. See the warning in vs. 6? “Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things, as they did.” You know the old phrase… we learn from history, or we are likely to repeat the same mistakes, right? Paul says it again in vs. 11 “These things happened to them as examples, and were written down as warning for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” Note that little phrase “the fulfillment of the ages”… that’s Jesus! He’s the fulfillment of ages of prophecies. He came just when God the Father determined it was the right time… and Paul was so excited it was during his lifetime!! Paul wrote to the Galatians “But when the time had FULLY COME, God sent His Son, born of a woman…”. ( Gal. 4:4)
You see friends, regardless of where you and I live, or in what generation we live, temptation to be self-reliant and turn away from God will come, and that’s why God’s promises in vs. 12 & 13 are so powerful! “So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall.” Do you love the powerful promises of God’s Power and God’s Presence, available to each of us, as Holy Spirit filled followers of Jesus Christ, in vs. 13? “He will provide a way out…” Now you see… it was the same for those 1 million Hebrews. God was there in all His power…but they turned away and stumbled. Let’s not do the same thing.. let’s stand firm!
I love this little verse hidden in Isaiah 7:9 “If you do not stand firm in your FAITH you will not stand at all.”
In 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 you’ll find two important things, but be careful as you read them. Paul writes “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks, a participation in the blood of Christ?” Paul speaks here of the Communion cup, which Jesus initiated in the upper room, when He took the wine in the Sedar meal and said “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 20) Then they all drank it, as they normally would at that point in the Passover meal.
But it had new meaning, for Jesus had explained He was giving His life, to be the Passover Lamb, to pay for their sins. His blood, applied to their lives (and ours) cleanses us from our sin, so we are ransomed from sin condemnation. As the angel of death passed over the houses of those Hebrews in Exodus 12, who had put the blood of the Passover Lamb on their doorposts, in faith believing God would protect them from judgement, so we can be sure the blood of Christ will protect us from sin judgment.
But please don’t be confused by Paul writing “a participation in the blood of Christ… a participation in the body of Christ.” (vs. 16) The word Participation might be better translated ASSOCIATION. We are associating ourselves with Christ’s atonement death as we take communion. We are PARTICIPATING in the Spiritual sense but NOT in the physical sense. The reason that’s important is this fundamental question: Does the communion bread we eat, or the communion cup we drink miraculously become, actually, physically the body and blood of Jesus, 2000 years after His crucifixion? The answer is NO! It is a symbol, just as it was in the upper room when Jesus first shared it with His disciples that night BEFORE He was crucified. A symbol that celebrates our ASSOCIATION with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, as His atonement sacrifice is applied by God to our sin, and we are cleansed, forgiven, justified, redeemed, born again to new life in Christ.
You’ll see also Paul calls the Corinthians in vs. 18-22, to stay separated from any participation in idol worship. Our relationship with God is uniquely through Jesus Christ. That’s what John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 so strongly insist. There is no other way. We must be careful to NOT merge the purity of our relationship with Jesus with anything else which might dilute or distort the true Gospel.
Finally underline verse 31-33, Oh my such a wonderful, powerful statement by which we should live every day of the rest of our lives! “…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God…” What if that was a banner over each of our lives, everyday, from now till we step into heaven? So…why not? What’s holding us back? Nothing has the power to prevent that reality in our lives… except… our refusal to live it!
Have a great day friends…
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)