1 Corinthians 10:6-13
• The Israelites, God’s chosen people were often slow learners in painful ways.
• God, in His love for us, wants to keep us from learning painful lessons.
• So through His Word He provides warnings, lessons and the comfort of the Gospel.
To set the scene for today’s sermon I wanted to share with you just a few examples of painful mistakes that people have made:
- Twelve book publishers turned down JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book before Christopher Little agreed to publish 500 copies in 1997. That first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, has now sold over 120 million copies worldwide. Not painful physically, but certainly financially for those 12 publishers.
- Pastor Birkholz shared with me a story from his youth. His mother had been ironing shirts. He walked by and saw the iron standing at the end of the ironing board. He can remember wondering to himself, “Is the iron hot? For some reason, that he still doesn’t know why, he put his whole hand flat on the bottom part of the iron. Yes, it was hot, and yes, he burnt the entire palm of his hand. The only good thing to come out of that experience was that he learned his lesson, and quickly, and has never again put his hand on the bottom of a hot iron.
- A post online I saw last week: “I’ve often boasted that I’m now immune to poison ivy after getting a bad case of it years ago. Two days ago I walked fearlessly through a patch of it to demonstrate my immunity. It turns out that I’m not immune.”
Perhaps you have learned some lessons in the most painful way. Sometimes we may be slow learners and repeat painful experiences. Our gracious God wants to keep us from learning painful, even spiritually deadly, lessons. So, in his holy word, he has both warnings and comfort for us as we proceed on our journey heavenward to everlasting life. Paul describes in Ephesians 4:22–23 that in the truth of Jesus you are: to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And our text today has warnings to our old self and comfort for our new self as God’s children.
Warnings
In his letter, Paul describes three very painful lessons that God’s people had learned in the past as instructions, as warnings, to the church in the Greek city of Corinth. For he tells them in 1 Corinthians 11 that: Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. So what are the painful lessons that Paul uses as examples to the Corinthians?
The First Lesson: Idolatry
In verse 7 Paul writes, “Do not be idolaters as some of them were”, reminding his readers of when Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the 10 Commandments. As we heard last week, at the very moment God was establishing His covenant with His people through Moses, Aaron, his brother, made an idol in the form of a Golden Calf. He told the people that this is the god who brought you out of Egypt. God’s judgment fell upon the idolaters.
The Second Lesson: Sexual Immorality
In verse 8, Paul writes “We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.” Here he is referring to the events in Numbers 25. The Israelites inter-married, and worse, with the Moabites and Midianites. A plague struck down over 23,000 Israelites in a single day.
The Third Lesson: Testing God and Complaining
Paul says in verse 9 and 10, “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.” Paul is referring to the events recorded in the book of Numbers chapter 21, where we hear: And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.”
In all these examples we see that our God had a judgment on godlessness and disobedience, that there are consequences. God, having chosen them and led them out of slavery, providing them with all their needs, commanded them to serve him and obey his Word. But when they rebelled and blatantly disobeyed, putting God to the test, they had to feel the terrific force of his punishment. Their punishment was totally the result of their arrogance in the face of God’s Word, boasting of their privileges as the people of God, upon whom he daily bestowed great kindness, but they responded with ingratitude and disobedience. And this was Paul’s warning to the Corinthian Christians, that they are falling back into the same sins as the Israelites and are testing God’s patience at their peril. He is giving them a wake-up call to shake them out of their sinful security and self-righteous self-confidence. They counted themselves as God’s privileged special people, who thought they lacked nothing but then fell into creating sects and divisions among themselves, and despising each other.
Earlier in the letter he writes: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.” And in Chapter 5 he says: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans.“
They had been brought out of a sinful life of immorality by God’s saving grace and faith in Jesus Christ, but had then followed their own inclinations, and were sexually immoral. At the same time, they wanted to be regarded as Christians, and boastfully prided themselves on having received the original Gospel from the great apostles, but had then abandoned the repentant life and were putting themselves in very real danger. And just like the Israelites, because they had already received God’s grace and goodness, they thought that they could then behave in terrible ways without any consequences. And Paul instructs them in verse 12 of our text. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” Beware, Paul is saying, temptation is lurking to draw you back into your old lifestyle, your old sinful ways.
So here is also now a warning for us. No matter where we are in this world, no matter where we are on our journey heavenward, there are temptations to draw us back into the old way of life, the old self, the godless sinner self. Remember there is a Tempter, and he uses everything he can to destroy your life, your faith and your salvation. He knows your weaknesses, we are all different and have different weaknesses and he will tailor the temptation to suit. The Devil makes sin look so good and so enjoyable to our old Adam, that it’s easy to forget about the earthly and eternal consequences of falling back into those sins. We are all tempted. Heed the warning. Beware, be aware: If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!
The Comfort in the Journey
But after the warnings, Paul writes that there is also a great comfort for the Corinthians and for us. In verse 13 we are told that: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” Our God is faithful and compassionate. The writer of the book of Hebrews observes that in Christ we: … do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15) For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)
Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are. He understands what we are going through. He completely and perfectly took our place as our Savior. He had to undergo every temptation and be victorious, he had to live the perfect sinless life. All for us. Then for all of us, he had to make the full payment, for the wages of our sin is death, so he willingly paid for it on the cross. Since Jesus gave his all for us, our God is not going to easily give up on us in our journey. He does not want us to lose the most precious gift he has offered to all, the gift of eternal life with Him. As we heard in the Gospel reading today, we are in the world and we cannot serve two masters. The Lord wants us to resist the devil, fight temptation, to flee from every kind of evil and wickedness.
How are we to do this? James tells us in verse 7 of his book to simply: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” So throughout the battle trust in the Lord, trust in His promises that we hear in His Word, that He is faithful, and be assured that He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. In times of temptation, remember your baptism when God adopted you into his family as brothers and sisters of Christ, so we share in Christ’s victory over Satan when he was tempted, and his victory over death. God is freely giving you the incomparable riches of His kingdom, so in humility and repentance accept them. And from the overflowing of your grateful hearts you will live God pleasing lives that are a blessing to your brothers and sisters in Christ, your family and your neighbours.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39).
We are Christ’s own children, we gladly say it. We are baptised into Christ. We are children of paradise.
Amen