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Think 312.
Be done, almighty Lord.
On to victory, encouraged by thy blessed word. With joy we followed thee.
We don't, almighty.
Lord.
They want to make a holiday by my blessing world.
Where shall we?
Sweet.
Forever.
It was now.
Our Shepherd is still our guardian and guide. Before he before us, he goes to help and to provide 234.
The springs that refresh us from heaven were given.
Our bread is the manna that came down from heaven.
234.
We're not of the world.
I.
Glad.
That we're doing it all the way. All the rest of the granny Grand Slam.
And great for our great flavor greatly.
00:05:13
Heart attacker, I will be the same. I believe you're as well. Strange for 25 treasures.
Glory shall stand.
Our sun.
I suggest we continue on in First Corinthians 10.
Should we begin?
Verse 7.
First Corinthians chapter 10, beginning at verse 7.
Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written. The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and 20,000 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpent.
Neither murmured ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happen unto them for examples. And they were, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him thus thinketh he standeth. Take heed lest he fall.
There hath no temptation taken you.
But such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee us, flee from idolatry.
I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh.
Not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar.
What say I then? That the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything but? I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God.
And I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me.
But all things edifieth not. Verses which we're about to take up might seem at first glance what we would call negative. And a lot of times we don't like to hear things that are negative. We'd rather hear things that are positive or what we call encouraging. But I think it's important to see the way God presents these warnings to us, He says in verse six. These things are our examples.
00:10:01
I'm giving these things to you as examples so that.
You won't do. I'm warning you ahead of time so that you won't do these things. And God cares enough about us. If we're parents with our children and we care about them, we warn them ahead of time to preserve them from getting into things that will be harmful to them. I will always remember when I was a child in grade school one day the principal of the school.
Called all the children of the school together.
Unannounced, the teachers didn't even know it was coming into the auditorium. And he gave us a very serious.
Warning, if you will.
And I didn't realize at the time being a child, but afterwards I learned that the day before his wife had very tragically, perhaps unnecessarily, died.
And it was so strong in the man that he would come and gather all his school together, that he might warn us in a way that would preserve us from the consequences of certain things, one of which had taken his wife's life. And here we have God who cares about us. And it's because he loves us and because he cares about us that he gives us these very serious.
Matters of really warning to us, lest, as it says, we be tempted to follow.
What happened to these people, the children of Israel? But he says no, this is an object lesson for you.
I want you to learn from it so that you can be preserved from doing the same thing.
And so he to continue on in the chapter, the second of the five things that he brings before us.
Is in the verse 7 where we started. It says neither be ye idolaters.
This is the first commandment. That is, they were to have no other gods before them. This was the very first command from God with his people.
That there was to be nothing, no one, no thing that was to come between himself and themselves and their hearts.
And it's never changed with God. If we want to have a relationship with God, if we want to know our God, if we want to enjoy him, he says the same thing to us. The very last message perhaps written in the Word of God, maybe the last words of the inspired scripture is in 3rd John chapter. Well, only one chapter, but the last verse. Children, keep your cells from idols.
It is the very thing that separates us in heart from God. An idol is anything, anything that takes a hold of my heart that comes between myself and God. It isn't just a figure that some people erect. Although the 2nd commandment was don't do that because that leads to idolatry of heart. People may have a statue or this or that and say, well, I don't, there's no idol to me.
But God is preserving us from anything that will separate us in our relationship with Himself. It's an idol, and God will not be pleased.
He created us for His own purpose and pleasure, and anything that destroys for God the purpose for which He created us is, if I can put it this way, intolerable to Him. He's not pleased with it. And if you allow and if I allow something to come into our lives which in in root takes God's place or is more important in our hearts than God himself.
Then God in graciousness is going to deal with us. We're our own blessing for our own good and for His own hearts sake.
Whatever separates us, God will.
Also ultimately separate us from one another too, and divisions come in among God's people.
There's idolatry there, too.
What's connected with this is interesting.
00:15:04
You look at the last part of the verse. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Anything wrong with sitting down to eat and drink and rising up to play?
You know, I really believe in the country we live in that one of the greatest idols is pleasure.
Want to have a good time. Is there anything wrong with having a good time?
In itself, there's nothing wrong with it.
But brethren, we're not down here in this world to have a good time.
We really understand our place here in this world.
It's for His pleasure. We've been created. Just read that verse in Revelation Four. I think it's so good. It's talking about creation. What's the purpose of creation?
Notice in chapter 4 Revelation the end of the chapter.
It says the four and 20 elders verse 10 fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him that liveth forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying.
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure.
Here they are and were created. Are we down here for our pleasure?
I really believe that this is one of one of the great idols of our culture.
Pleasure. Want to have a good time? Want to have it all my way? What is the object of those kind of things? That kind of thinking is myself.
That will not satisfy you and I think we've all proved it. I can remember when I was young and I'm not knocking, playing some sports.
I loved playing football.
We recently had a good time, but I can still remember.
Coming home from a Saturday afternoon football game just feeling totally empty.
And it's because I think I was too focused on that. That's not what's going to satisfy me. It's living for his pleasure. What does he want for me? And, and to me, young people, if you can get that focus on life, it will be a real blessing to you. We're not down here to have a good time down here. The Lord Jesus, did he have a good time when he was here in this world?
Anything but, He groaned. He felt it deeply. The suffering and the sorrow of this world. We should feel it too.
He was down here for his father's will and pleasure and that's what should be our object too. And if we get before us the thought of having a good time, that can be a great idol. Lord Sparris from being self-centered.
I really think that that's one of our problems in this culture. It's why you see so many young people totally dissatisfied with life, some so dissatisfied they can't stand life anymore and they take their own lives. Tragic, But the purpose we're here for, the purpose God made us for, is for his pleasure. Sometimes say there's somebody made this chair up here.
And when he made that chair?
He had a purpose for that chair. Now that chair doesn't determine its purpose to look nice.
Or to be something to be admired. No, it's here for the purpose it was created. We have been created for a purpose as well. Maybe you say I have a defect, a physical defect. Well, thank God if He created you that way. He has a purpose in mind, and it's in understanding His purpose that you're going to find.
Real fulfillment in life. Lord, help us to have Christ before our souls, the living God. How could we replace it with something else? And yet that is the natural tendency of our hearts. I have to say brethren, if I cease to enjoy the living God, there's 1001 other things that want to fill the void in my heart runs after those things naturally.
00:20:21
If they're not satisfied with the living God, that's why it's first John five that you mentioned. Don, I just wanted to thank you. Say it's the last verse of First John 5. Let's just read that because it's so good. It puts it in focus. If you read the verse before that one that Don mentioned.
First John chapter 5 and verse 20. Here's what it says we know.
That the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding.
That we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
Oh, how important that is to have the living God.
We can know God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think you've mentioned Chuck a number of times and I investigated myself a little bit, but the Muslims say God is unknown and unknowable.
Isn't that tragic? They will never know God. Never.
And if you go over to other religions in the Far East, Hindus, I think they say they have 300 million gods.
But here we have the true God, and we.
Have been brought to know him in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Is there something else that can replace him?
In our hearts, that's an idol.
The quotation is from Exodus 32, verse 6.
In the.
6th verse Well.
What we're getting here is the creation of the golden calf.
Molten cap verse four. And Aaron saying towards the end of the verse, these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron sought, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. They rose up early on tomorrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up.
Play. Or you might notice the new translation says Rose up to sport well.
I wonder in our chapter if really you get a connection between verse 7.
And verse 18.
In verse 19.
It wasn't just that they.
Ate and drank and rose up to play, but the fact was it was in connection with the golden calf.
It it shows that it's puts them in fellowship with that which God could not have fellowship with.
The world has its own glories.
And constantly seeks to pull the Christian into that.
And our own hearts, the fallen nature, would do the same thing.
Pull us into it.
But there was.
Definite heavy consequences from that.
In Israel's history.
Part of the connection is that.
Moses had gone up in the mount to.
Commune with God and receive from him for the people. And the people got tired of waiting.
And they got tired of waiting on God. They got tired of waiting on God's messenger.
God servant Moses.
And so they say to Aaron, make us a cap.
00:25:05
And.
They take and substitute for the true God.
The calf and they then do they have sport, they have that activity which associates them with their idol.
They're going to enjoy something apart from God, God says to Moses. They're a stiff necked people.
And I'm going to well, you said I'm going to annihilate him. He's ready to do judgment with them. And Moses in one way intercedes. But I think it's a lesson for us. We can easily turn to idolatry. That is, we can find something to set our heart on rather than God.
If we get tired of waiting on him and we become rebellious or stiff necked and say, well, if God isn't going to do this for me and that for me, and if I've been, I turn to God and and he hasn't done anything in my life, it's not working, people say. And so they turn to something else. They substitute the true God for something of their own imagination to satisfy the desire of the heart.
And.
They have. There's a consequence to that. And so there is for us. We need to remember, wait on God.
He is in control. He always knows what's best for us. And our danger is that we will get tired of waiting and say, God isn't doing it for me. I prayed about this, I did that, I did the other. And it's not, we say, working. And so we say, all right, God isn't going to help me. I'm going to find my own help. And we then make it the focus and the center of our hearts and our lives and.
It's idolatry.
And it bears its consequence.
But we're all liable to it.
John said God is your father, you belong to his family. He says he will supply everything. Don't turn your back on your father and go in a rebellious way and find your own idol.
That last part of verse seven, they said people sat down to eat and to drink, rose up to play. I remember I was in my early 20s. It hadn't been saved long. I went down to Jamaica with an older brother and they were having an outing and they were.
Looping things up and someone said those children, many children there, don't know who their daddy is.
And what's more, their mother doesn't know who their daddy is.
That's the kind of thing that they fell into and I think that's what's involved here. They sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. They just since they set aside God, that's what they this evil that they've done in verse six. They lusted after evil things. They wanted the things that God forbade. So they set aside God, become idolaters, set up another God that doesn't mind that they do those things.
And then they they get into this.
Evil way of doing things, and it goes on to committing fornication as some of them felt it's. It's just, you might say, a sequence of events that start with setting God aside in your life.
And.
It's very, very common that people today in this so-called Christian country live together, man and wife and they're not married. And that's that's right in this context, isn't it? How far that we can get away from God And those even that are raised in meeting have gone into that kind of thing at times they need to be prayed for.
Need to have the fear of God before them that they're afraid I will not do that evil.
And if they yield to it, there's no way of saying how far they'll go. And we're no better by our nature. Our sin nature is no better, and we have to be careful.
00:30:02
What we allow, because one step leads to another, which leads to another, and so on. That's what you're getting in this chapter, isn't it?
Made the golden calf out of the earrings that they've been wearing, which is.
In a sense, it's not a great thing. I mean, but there's a lesson, which is whatever we use to beautify ourselves, it may or may not be simple in itself, but it can really lead us into things that are quite evil. It's something to be very wary about #1 And then #2 I'm always touching this. A lot of Christians, you know, these, again, these things that Paul says, these are here for our example, right? So we can learn. And a lot of Christians have just do basically exactly what the Israelites do here, which is they set up an idol.
They just get mixed up in the Christian life and they're thinking this is what saved me and this is a practical example to illustrate what I'm talking about. And not to condemn any particular group, but I've run into a lot of behaviors and just get the impression.
That the King James Bible is what saved them. This is very common among fundamentalist Christians today. And for this believe that's that's the only thing there really is And the way they talk about it, it's as though this is what saved them and you get saved by believing in the King James Bible. And of course, there's a lot of other examples too. That's Susan is an illustration.
But the point is, we, these other things that we experience in our Christian life become such a focus to us. It's as though we have our item. We think this is what brought me out of Egypt. And God is saying, no, that's not what brought you out of Egypt. I'm the one who did it right? And instead of ending up with the temple worship where we have the contact with God, you end up with this worthless little idol. But unfortunately, it's a very common tactic of Satan to distract Christians from really.
Putting their trust in their worship in in the right place to get caught with one thing or another could be any manner of things.
It distracts Christians from really focusing on God himself.
I was talking to a girl that was raised a young girl who was raised by a boy that was raised in the meeting know him quite well and.
I said to her when she was going to college, I said what are you taking up? She said psychology and she could see the frown on my face and I wasn't in proving that. And I got to talking to her and.
I asked her. Finally I said, Do you have a Bible?
Well, I think so, she said. Have you ever read it? But I don't read it. I said, well I suggest you read to start with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Are they in the Bible?
That's what she said.
The father was raised in the meeting.
As she said, when she left me, she said, I I'm going to read those first four books in the New Testament. She hardly knew the difference between the New and the Old Testament. You know, if we're that ignorant of what this book says, we are totally vulnerable to the enemy to introduce anything into our lives, anything. We don't have any absolute standard of truth that says don't do that.
That's what we have here.
If we don't have that, then you can do whatever you want and no one can say stop doing that. Who are you?
Just another Sinner. But if it's God that says it, you have to start with him. It's God that says it. That's the absolute standard of truth. The Lord Jesus is the truth. The Spirit of God is the truth. Thy word is truth. Those three things are spoken of as the truth. Without that you have nothing. No true guy. All it's up to you. Terrible. And that's where this country is going.
We need to be sensitive in these things, I really believe.
As to having idols in our hearts, brethren, we can speak to the young people, but we who are older are just as vulnerable to having certain things in our lives that occupy our hearts and are the object of our hearts instead of the living God I think of.
The very first church that's mentioned in Revelation in the seven churches, Ephesus, everything was outwardly in order there. But notice what he says in the second chapter of Revelation and verse four. He says, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
00:35:22
Was nothing outward that the Lord observed. It was something inward that their heart was not towards him as it was before. You know, you and I can look at each other and say, well, it looks like everything's pretty good with that brother, that sister. But the Lord is the one that observes. And I have to challenge myself. I wake up in the morning, go to sleep at night.
What is my heart's occupation? Is it the living God?
That one who formed us for his pleasure, or is there something else?
Is it a car? Is it a personal friend?
It's so easy to let the heart.
Go from the living God to some other object, be what it may. And the Lord knows when that happens. And we need to challenge our hearts to that way. I confess, brethren before you, that my heart goes towards idolatry very easily. There are certain things.
That naturally, I really like and I challenge myself.
In the Lord's presence, there's only one that can fully satisfy.
This wandering heart, and that's the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Of the pleasure of having him before our souls, Lord, keep us.
Verse eight, he says neither. Let us commit fornication.
We've had, and I think quite rightly.
Warning here against physical fornication, and it's been brought out. Our brother Chuck has brought it out. But there is another side to it here too. In the Old Testament, the children of Israel in the wilderness, some of the men rose up and committed fornication with the daughters of Moab. Perhaps that's what's referred to specifically as as an example here.
There's a spiritual aspect here that's important to us.
The children of Israel were in Egypt and they were mixed with the world there and they were God's people. And he said, these are my people and this is not a place for them and this is not a good mixture for them either. I'm going to separate them out as a people for myself and I'm going to take them to a land and they're going to be my people and I'm going to be their God. And that land is to be pure from all the.
Heathen that lived there, that are corrupt and evil, and so they're to be removed and my people are to be kept separate and pure for myself in separation from those around them in their own land.
You and I have been espoused to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been brought into a relationship with Himself.
On the foundation of purity.
Some of us in our wedding vows said, forsaking all others cleave to one another so long as we shall live. And that, in a spiritual sense, is what has happened, or should be the case with us, as having been espoused to be part of the Bride of Christ. We are brought into a relationship with Himself for seeking all others.
And in the enjoyment of himself and his love, as we anticipate and look forward to the wedding that will shortly take place.
And here God doesn't want us to forsake that relationship in our present, walk and turn around and fornicate with the world and what the world has its heart on.
00:40:02
And to go after the same things with it and.
I sometimes use this example at a detention center. I say to the kids.
I don't try to get them to understand the body of Christ truth, but I say I recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as my friend. He has chosen to be a friend to me and we have a companionship together. And I say, suppose I leave this room tonight and I go into the city of Joliet and I rob the 711.
Is the Lord Jesus going to go with me to do it? They all understand, they immediately say. Of course not. They almost occasionally laugh.
But seriously, as it is, we are in relationship to the Lord Jesus, in a relationship that's to be maintained in purity, and he is on his part.
Doing everything to maintain that relationship with us. Are we going to turn around and commit fornication, as it were? Are we going to turn away from his heart, his affections, his desire for our company and say, well, Lord, I need a little of this, of the world, I need a little of that.
I need something else and form a relationship or act in that way with someone else's good, someone else's things, he says. Again, the same message. God is not pleased.
God has chosen us to be the bride for his Son. And if we turn away from our place to other things.
Our God, who has chosen us to be his son's bride, says I'm not pleased. And there's a consequence, as it says in the end of that verse, And there fell one day.
3 and 20,000.
First John chapter First John chapter 2. It sums it up twice nicely about the three things instead of the five that we have before us. Let's turn to that football match. First John chapter 2, verse 16.
And for all that is in the world, the.
Lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. We'll find that almost every form of temptation that we face out there would be either all three or one of one of these three categories. The lusts of the eyes. The eyes often cause us to lust into many things, and there are times too, in this society.
We can't avoid them sometimes just going down the highway. We see a lot of things, even on billboards and other things that can turn our hearts away from our blessed Lord.
You see here the lust of the flesh. We talk about fornication a little bit. It's not difficult because our natural heart has a tendency to go toward these things. And I'm glad our brother Bob mentioned that he find it difficult. I hope I'm phrasing it right away at times to see even the older ones to face those problems. And I look around. We see many young people here.
And I know I often look and say, well, it's easy for you older brothers to follow these, but it's so difficult for us because we fail. We know that we often fail because these attractions, these lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and then of course, the pride of life would lead us into these temptations over and over again. Do we give in because we failed? And we'll find that the enemy is constantly working, isn't he, to cause us failing?
These categories let's go back to the verse that we had before us in first John chapter 3.
I'm sorry, first John chapter 5 that lasts second to last verse and I'm addressing the young people here especially, and I suppose it is for us all too. Here we're reminded and we know that the Son of God is calm and have given us an understanding that we might know him. That is that is true.
00:45:09
And we are in him. That is true even in his Son Jesus Christ. And then they go on and say, little children, keep yourselves from idols. How do we keep ourselves from idols? I believe the entry is right here, that He has given us that understanding. Well, do we realize that if we're not closely reading His word, well, we're not closely in communion with our blessed Lord. We won't realize that, do we? And as young people.
Sometimes our faith is still.
Tender. So we need to go into His Word more and more. I like to turn to another verse here in the book of Hosea.
I find that helpful to me because whenever we fail.
We know that it's not because the Lord is not there to help us.
So you lost track of that.
Hosea chapter 2 I believe, chapter 6. I'm sorry. Isaiah chapter 6, verse 3.
Chapter 6, verse 3. Just the beginning part there is that.
Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord? I believe this should be an encouragement to us if we seek to learn more of Him. Every step of that pathway we take, every time we overcome that wicked one.
It was strengthened our faith. I'd like to return to just one more portion there in Galatians chapter 5.
Galatians chapter 5 we will read to Well, we will read just a little bit of that verse 19.
We won't read the whole list there, but just to get the idea. Verse 19 Now the words of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication and cleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, and so on. We find that list in there. I believe we dwell on that list. Then there is not much growth for us, but rather in verse 22, the Word of God want us to dwell on the fact that He said, but the fruit of the Spirit.
Do we reflect that young people, the fruit of the Spirit? Let's dwell on that is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Verse 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying.
One another. We need to dwell on that, don't we, of things that are of God, and walk in the Spirit as we ought to?
Connection with this verse 8, I'd just like to say a further word, Don, you mentioned the spiritual side of the thing, and that is a very important side. I just want to mention the natural side of this sin, which is, as Chuck has said, very common in today's world, young people living together.
Boy and a girl before they get married. It is not God's order. It is to be avoided. We're not to follow the world standards and Scripture is very clear that that is not acceptable. Just read a few verses in connection with it in the New Testament that relate to the physical sexual sin that it is.
First Corinthians, Chapter 7.
And verse one and two now concerning.
The things whereof you wrote unto me, It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. It's not that those intimate relations are prohibited, but they are to be used within the context of marriage. And sometimes I found it helpful to use the illustration of the Mississippi River.
00:50:23
Very useful river. A lot of shipping goes up and down that river, and it's useful in a lot of other areas too. But a few years ago, when there was too much rain, it got out of its banks and it did tremendous damage. That's human sexuality.
In its context, within its borders, it's something that is extremely.
Wonderful and productive. But when it gets outside of that context, it can be extremely damaging. And so scripture says here it's to avoid fornication and let every man have his own wife, let every woman have her own husband.
Then let's go over to.
Verse.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4.
Marriage is honorable in all, the translation says. Let marriage be honorable in all.
And the bed undefiled means the sexual relationships are to be done without defilement. But ************ and adulterers, God will judge.
The awful scourge of the AIDS epidemic.
In the world is testimony to the fact that man has not done it according to what God has shown us in his word. You can never be wiser than scripture. Another verse in first Timothy. Timothy was a young man. Here is Paul's instruction to him and it's so important in our life and testimony.
Purity.
Someone used that word already but in the 4th chapter it says in verse.
12 Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in Word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
Beautiful and it's put there because if you keep yourself pure for that one person, like you mentioned, Don in the marriage vows, it has the effect of being a much more stable relationship when that union is formed. Keep yourself pure for the one and only in your life, dear young brother.
Your young sister. One more verse in chapter five of First Timothy.
Just the last verse, the last phrase of verse 22.
It's talking about laying hands suddenly on no man. But the purpose is, and this is to be what is followed in our lives. Keep thyself pure, the Lord. Help us, dear young people.
What we desire to see for you is to form relationships that will be solid.
And lasting. And this is the principles of God's Word in relation to them.
No provision for the flash to fulfill the loss thereof.
Actually what the older brother and are telling the younger brother, even though you may purpose in your heart and I have no doubt every teenager or person in their 20s here have no desire to fornicate you put yourselves in the wrong positions. That's what you're going to do.
And the same goes for us older people. If we're not careful in the workplace or in the office place, if we're not careful not to let another man's wife and our car alone, etcetera, we're going to follow this temptation. We're in a lust crazed world with our brother saying lust crazed billboards, radio shows, TV shows, movies, can't even watch a football game without a bunch of garbage in front of you.
00:55:13
We make provision for the flesh. More than likely we will fall. And if we don't make a provision such as young people, never be around your girlfriend unless your parents or their aunt or uncle.
I mean, is there something you're going to want to do away from an aunt and uncle or a parent? Well, you probably shouldn't be doing it. You're making provision.
I know somebody sitting beside me thinks that's a little rough, but it's just common sense.
Spiritual common sense, that is.
The last two that are mentioned.
Verses 9 either let us tempt Christ, and verse 10 neither murmur ye as the last two of these five admonitions.
Both of them have to do with our attitude toward God.
We need to cultivate right attitudes with God.
And in this case, the children of Israel, in one case they chided or tempted that the word chide is also there. They chided with Moses and said, give us fetch us water.
In the other case they murmured and they said, God, Moses has brought us out into the wilderness to destroy us. We would have been better off if we just stayed in Egypt.
All of us need to maintain a right attitude between our soul and God.
And it is so easy for us. Job is an example of someone who.
Lost the right attitude with God and he said God isn't treating me right. God isn't dealing with me the way that's fair.
And God had to deal with Moses, and graciously does. And God will graciously deal with us.
One of the little keys or clues that we have that our relationship isn't our attitude isn't what it should be, is in both of these instances. In the Old Testament, they got out their feelings through Moses. That is, they took a servant of God and they complained to him. And very often when my feelings toward God aren't what they should be, I'll find myself telling someone else.
And saying, you know, God is doing this or isn't doing that and I don't know why. And sometimes we we put it in the form of a question, but in reality, it's not always a question with us. Sometimes it's just really a statement of where we are and God.
Doesn't appreciate it. It's important if we're not feeling right, to go directly to him about it. We have to have an honest relationship with Him. And if we're angry, we better tell the Lord we're angry. We ought to be. We ought to not withhold it because it might be a wrong feeling. We need to get it out, but don't run to somebody else.
Go directly to God about your attitude if you recognize that there's something wrong with it, or even if you don't, and let Him speak to you about it.
But God is for us.
And if we lose sight of that in any instance, in any circumstance of our life, that's a form of murmuring.
God did not bring us out into the wilderness to destroy us. He brought us into the wilderness to humble us, to teach us our own hearts, to give us to know His faithfulness and His provision for us. And when we get to the end, every one of us in this room is going to look back and thank God for every wilderness experience we ever went through in our lives when we see His side of it.
There will never be an experience that we go through now that we won't look back and see His hand in it and thank Him. Yes, there may be consequences as there were here for our own unfaithfulness or our own unbelief, our own impatience, whatever it is. But when we see the whole, we'll look back and say thank God for the wilderness.
01:00:02
It was a most needed and most profitable experience for our blessing for eternity.
Now I'm just reminded of the picture again to go back to the children of Israel, how you had Moses up on the mountain when they were fighting the Malachites, who had the Moses up on the hill, and you had Joshua down in the plane fighting the battle. And you have to wonder, how can I deal with the flesh? How can I deal with the sin in the world? And of course, the Amalekites signify the flesh in the Old Testament because they're so closely related to Israel.
And that it's a picture of.
How this kind of fighting takes place. When God dealt with the Egyptians, He just said stand back, I'm going to do the whole thing. But he doesn't deal with the flesh in that way. In Romans 8, it says if we put it by the Spirit, put to death the works of the flesh, right? I'm not quite that far, right, But He expects us to be exercised in this matter by the Spirit. And the fact that you have Joshua down in the plane fighting the battle and you also have Moses.
Up on the hill, interceding indicates the two aspects of the work of Christ to deal with the flesh, to help us, I should say, deal with the flesh. On the one hand, Christ is in the heavens today. On the other hand, he's also living within us, right? And the way we experience this, indwelling Christ to help us put to death all the works of the flesh is by a lot of prayer. And to really be a person who's dealing with the flesh, it takes that kind of exercise, spiritual exercise before the Lord. And then I was also just reminded of something somebody shared with me.
Once I'll never forget because I was singing about Romans seven and eight and he shared something about those chapters. And in Romans 7, you see somebody who's really struggling a lot with sin, right? And what was me? And the sin dwells in my flesh. He's living in defeat. And but the word spirit in that section of Romans 7, it never mentions the spirit. But of course, when you come to Romans 8, all through the Romans chapter 8, it talks about the spirit. And what that brother shared was that if we're in the realm of am I sinning or not sinning, you're a person who's under the law.
You're living under the law trying. I'm going to be a person who's going to stop sinning and it's not going to work. And eventually the Lord has to expose that. But if we're a person who's living in spirit, we're all together out of that realm. It doesn't mean that we're not conscious of sin, but we by the spirit, we're able in that realm, we're able to put to death the works of the flesh. And that's how we live a holy life. A person who's in communion with Christ and living with Christ day by day is not going to be living a simple life, but they're not always going to be struggling either. You know what was me? I'm a Sinner. He's going to be focused on Christ. And through that kind of experience, they're going to have the living that you see in Romans 8, which is a holy.
Life separate from sin number 76 in the desert God will teach thee what the God that thou hast found patient, gracious, powerful, holy. All his grace shall there abound. Hymn #76.
Rise, my soul, thy God, thy wrath.