Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at mylibertybaptist.org or just
look us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
First Corinthians in chapter #10.
Say, pastor, why are you in the Word so soon?
And the question is, well, why can't we be in the Word so soon?
Amen. It's church.
And that's what we're doing here tonight.
And so First Corinthians chapter #10 we are going to have a short
meeting after church and to be a different meeting than normal.
Normally we have a business meeting.
We ask those who are not members to be able to depart.
And that's not the case this evening.
And so we're going to ask you to stay behind just for a few
moments. But we are in First Corinthians
chapter. #10 and you may remember we started through this
section of First Corinthians chapter #7 chapter 8 chapter #9
now we're chapter #10 and I mentioned what we're going to
get in this part and we're going to go 1 chapter a time.
How do you remember that? A few weeks ago?
Oh good, nobody remembers. So I guess I don't need to
continue. But so a few weeks ago we're do
1 chapter a time. We did that with Chapter 7.
We did that with chapter 8. Kind of got a little bogged down
in chapter #9 took two weeks to be able to go through it.
And now in chapter 10, I just looked at it in study and said,
you know what, it's going to take more than one week and
we're just going to take what we need.
You know, as a pastor, my desire is sometimes to be able to get
us to a certain destination. And for me, the destination to
make sure that we get through First Corinthians as the Lord
allows us. But there is also the part where
it's not as much about the destination, but about what we
learn on the way to the destination.
Really the issue is not, hey, let's get through First
Corinthians as fast as we can. The issue is, are we going to
learn what God has for us in First Corinthians?
I hope that's the case. So as that we are only going to
get through just the first 11 verses or so here tonight from
first Corinthians chapter #10 now Paul is going to be talking
to people of Corinth about their sinful predicament.
You say, what is that sinful predicament?
Well, pretty much everything we've read from chapter 1 to
Chapter 9. The church at Corinth is a very
worldly church, a church. The church at Corinth is so far
away from that which God has called them to do that Paul's
had to do a lot of readjusting, has he?
This is not just talking about spiritually, just changing the
drapes. This is not spiritually just
trying to make a few changes here and there.
There's a wholesale change that the people of Corinth need to
make because they were very far away from that which God has
called them to do their fighting with one another.
They're allowing sin to run rampant within the church.
Not only allowing it to run rampant within the church, but
they're kind of proud of the fact of how open minded they
are, allowing sin to run rampant through the church.
And so there's all these things that are taking place.
They're suing one another and taking one other court, not even
able to handle the most basic of issues like believers ought to
be, but rather going to ungodly magistrates asking them to fix
the problems that they can't fix by themselves within the body.
And so Paul is going to address these issues here again in
chapter #10 and he's going to address really the issue of
eating meats to idols again later on, not in the text that
we're reading tonight, but later on.
But he's going to set the table this evening with this idea of
taking thoughts from the Old Testament, taking teachings from
the Old Testament, and reminding the people of Corinth of who
they are and what they need to be by looking at the example of
the Old Testament. Now, maybe you're here tonight
and you thought, how relevant is the Old Testament to us in our
daily life today? Maybe some would say, well,
isn't it just important we read the New Testament?
It's even important that we read the Old Testament.
The Old Testament has gone away now that Jesus Christ has died
on the cross. And my answer to that is, I
don't know where you heard that, but you certainly haven't heard
it at Liberty Baptist Church. Because the Bible tells us to be
aware of the whole council of God.
That from cover to cover that we are to know the word of God and
to allow it to influence our life to be more like Christ.
And so we're going to see that here tonight in First
Corinthians chapter #10 And so you remain seated.
We'll begin reading in verse #1 where it says, Moreover,
brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant.
Ignorant how? That all our fathers were under
the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and we're all
baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
And did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all
drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank that drank of
that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was
Christ. But with many of them God was
not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things were our examples to the intent.
We should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
Neither be 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
were also tempted and were destroyed.
Of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of
them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Now all these things happen unto them, foreign samples, and they
are written for admonition upon whom the ends of the world are
coming. We'll stop in our reading right
there. You know, we have a tendency to
think, and I think our generation thinks this.
And I say our generation, I'm speaking broadly, knowing that
there technically are many generations who speak here
tonight. But if I was to broadly say our
generation, I do believe that often times it's the fact that
we believe that we are the most unique generation that ever
existed. Like we are the ones that are
going through the most hardship of all the people in known
civilization, that the hardship of hardships really belongs to
us here today. Have you noticed this?
This is just the way of our human condition.
I don't know if it's because we want to feel more special, if
it's because we want to feel more important than those who
have gone on before, but this is always the case.
Every four, four years, what do we hear?
This is the most important election of our lifetime.
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hearing that every four
years that they drum us up into this place of saying it's the
most important election of our lifetime.
Why? Because, well, it's the next
election, I guess. But this is what is always said.
Every generation of young people that goes before, the generation
that is after them says these are the most rebellious people
I've ever seen. That is always the case, is that
you could say that about the younger people in the 70s and
the 60s and you could say it about the younger people today.
That's always the case. These young people that are
coming up and usually the older people that are saying that
about the younger people weren't so great when they were younger
themselves, but yet the case is said that we are the unique.
Well, we've never seen young people like that are out there
right now. The moral decline that is found
in society is always spoken of as in this certain generation is
more unique than it's ever been in any other generation.
People don't work like they used to.
Nobody keeps their word anymore and the list goes on and on and
on. We talk about it, but every
generation before talked about it, about the generation that
was before them. Now listen, I want to be careful
here tonight. There's some things that I
understand because I could see some of you, the wheels are
turning a little bit this evening because you're thinking,
pastor, are you not saying that things aren't getting worse and
worse? And the answer is, well, yes,
things are getting worse and worse.
Why do I say that? Well, because the Bible says it.
Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 13 says, But evil men and
seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being
deceived. There's no doubt about the fact
that things are getting worse, or as the old preacher once
said, worser and worser, that things are getting worse out
there all the time. And it shouldn't surprise us
because this has been told to us in the word of God.
No, people aren't following the Lord in the way that they used
to. There was movements of God in
the past where there were great revivals even in this nation of
which we're not seeing the same stirrings as we did in other
times. I wouldn't argue that here
tonight sin abounds in more vengeance avenues and avenues
than it ever has before. We can't argue that this evening
that sin is more easily accessible than it would be in
maybe any other generation. These aren't the types of things
that I'm trying to tell you tonight.
But what I'm really trying to say is this.
The problems of this life remain unchanged over 6000 or so years
of human history. That the real problems of life
that we deal with remain unchanged.
Sure. Has sin changed its wrapping
paper? Yes.
Has sin changed the way it presents itself?
Absolutely. But is sin still sin?
Absolutely. And we are not so unique in this
generation that we are dealing with things in a way that no one
else has dealt with it before. Certainly they are coming at us
in different forms and different forums, but the issues of life
remain the same. People were worried 6000 years
ago, people were worried 2000 years ago, and people are
worried today. People got angry 6000 years ago,
people got angry 2000 years ago, People got angry or get angry
today. This is the human condition.
This is what we see. And so we talked about this for
a moment. We asked ourselves, do you deal
with sin? And do you suffer through
trials? Are are you tempted?
And if the answer is yes, which it ought to be yes.
That we have to remind ourselves we're not nearly as unique as we
think that we are. The issues of dealing with sin,
dealing with temptation, the trials of life, that we're not
as special as we think we are. Say, Pastor, that doesn't sound
very encouraging at all. In fact, sounds like you're just
talking down to us. And the answer is yes, that's
exactly what I'm doing. I'm talking, No, I'm not doing
that. I'm not doing that at all.
It ought to be encouraging to us tonight, and This is why.
Because the issues of life that we deal with are addressed very
clearly and addressed very plainly in God's holy word that
the issues of life that we think cannot.
Be relevant because the word Internet's not in the Bible,
because the word. Nicotine's not in the Bible
because social media is not in the Bible because.
None of these issues are in the Bible.
How helpful? But this old, dry, dusty book,
how helpful could the Old Testament be?
Don't you know Leviticus is in their pastor and numbers, a
whole book of people counting things.
And well, it's not the old book, but it's a lot of the book.
But anyway, is it important? Yes.
Is it helpful? Absolutely.
And we find that because we are not so unique as we think we
are, that the issues of life, no matter what comes our way, can
be found. Diagnosed and helped by what we
see in the word of God. So as Paul looks at Corinth's
present, he wants to hearken to Israel's past.
And so if we were pretending tonight that there were slides
on this. TV, which they are not, not
because of the sound men, but because of the unsound pastor #1
would be this. You're supposed to laugh at
that. Number one, is this looking at
Israel's past example. Number one is this.
Looking at Israel's past example, in the first few
verses, Paul makes an appeal to this largely Jewish church.
Or rather, it's largely Gentile church.
Excuse me, a church that maybe not as well versed in the
history of the Jews as the Jews would be, but he makes an appeal
to them about to them to look back at Jewish history.
And as such, he references several events we're familiar
with. Just in the beginning, from
verse one to verse #6 Paul mentioned several different
things he says in verse one. Moreover, brethren, I would not
that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under
the cloud and all passed through the sea.
What is Paul doing? Well, he starts by explaining
God's goodness to his people and he says, don't you remember when
you passed under the cloud? Don't you remember when you
passed through the sea? Now of course we understand
passing through the sea would have been the experience of the
Red Sea. When Israel was there up against
the Red Sea, the Egyptians were hard behind them, ready to
pounce on them if you will. But yet God held the Egyptians
back, held the water up. Israel went through as on dry
ground, and as soon as Moses said the word by the name of the
Lord, what happened? All the waters came back and the
Egyptian army was drowned. But it wasn't just that that
Paul references here, but rather the fact that they were under
the cloud. Now, maybe in the past you've
seen pictures, depictions about the pillar of cloud by day and
the pillar of fire by night. You know what I'm talking about
in the wilderness, how they went through and the pillar of cloud
went before them by day and the pillar of fire went before them
at night. I think sometimes our mindset of
what the pillar of cloud actually is, is actually a
little bit off. And the reason why is because
Proverbs, or rather Psalm 105 verse 39 says he spread a cloud
for a covering and fire to give light in the night.
I believe was there a pillar? Yes.
You know why I believe it? Because the Bible says it.
Exodus chapter 13 says so. But I believe it was not just a
pillar that was just up in the middle of the air, but rather
from that pillar extended large amounts of cloud covering.
Now why would that be important? Well, because Israel was in the
desert. I don't know about you, but I'm
not spending a lot of time in the desert.
But I do know this. I've spent some time in Southern
California where the temperature was 115° and people say, well,
it's not the heat, it's the humidity.
With 115, it's the heat. I don't care if there's 0
humidity when your shoes are melting on your feet.
I don't tell me it's not the heat, it's the humidity because
that's the way that it is. Could you imagine the Israelites
for 40 years out in that intense type of heat?
Yet what did God do? He not only used that pillar,
but I believe extending from that pillar a cloud that would
overspread the people of Israel to keep them temperate during
the day and then warmth during those very cold desert nights
that also could exist. What am I saying?
That God took care of them, sometimes even in ways that we
don't even think about and that we even comprehend.
Do you think God gave up on the Israelites for 40 years?
God never gave up on the Israelites.
Did God give up on you? But we've given up on him
plenty. He hasn't given up on us.
It says that they pass through the sea.
It says in verse #2 that they were baptized, They were
immersed passing through the water unto Moses.
And the fact of the matter was that they were passing through
the water. And as such, they identified
with Moses in the way that we could say that as we are
immersed in baptism, who do we identify with?
Jesus Christ? Romans chapter 6.
You can read the first few verses, explain that to you
quite well. And so Paul says, listen, God
has taken care of the people of Israel over and over and over
again. But that's not all it says in
verse #3 they ate the same spiritual meat.
What kind of meat are we talking about?
Certainly we think of meat and we think of the quail, but
oftentimes the Bible talks about meat.
It's also talking about what we would call meal at the same
time, a bread. What type of spiritual bread
would have fallen from heaven for 40 years?
It tasted like wafers and honey and coriander seed.
What would that be? Well, that would have been the
mana. What was incredible about mana
as they looked at the mana that was.
On the ground and they said what is it?
And that's why it's called mana, because in the Hebrew what is it
is the word mana. So literally they go, what is
it? And every day for 40.
Years they're eating. What is it?
And they baked it, and they fried it, and they made it every
different way possible. But God sustained them through
that blessed mana for 40 years. Exodus 16, verse 35.
And the children of Israel did eat mana 40 years until they
came to a land inhabited. They did eat mana until they
came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.
They drank of the same spiritual drink, it says in verse #4 for
they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them.
And that rock was Christ. Boy, there's so much that I
could just really get into right there.
For those who say, well, Jesus Christ just appeared in the New
Testament. Jesus Christ is all over the
word of God. Jesus Christ, was that wrong
first. Smitten and the water came out.
Second to be spoken. To But what did Moses do?
He smote the rock a second time. By the way, the rock Jesus
Christ is not to be smitten twice.
He was smitten once. Why is that important?
Well, because those who partake of the Eucharist believe they
are crucifying Christ afresh every single time they receive
it. But it's crucified once and then
spoken to the rock. And it says here that that rock
is what they drank from the water.
And I didn't even realize this until recently, but Paul builds
up on a rabbinical tradition that said Israel was supplied
with water by the same rock throughout all the wilderness.
That wherever they went, they literally picked up the rock,
took it with them, and wherever they went, they were supplied
with water. Now I can't prove that to be
true, but it does say this. Wherever they went, they drank
of the water and the water was Christ.
So whether that water followed them along, it carved its own
path through the desert and they followed that, or whether the
rabbi's would have the the priest would have lifted up that
rock and taken it wherever it needed to go.
You said what must have been a big rock.
Listen, God can make water come out anywhere.
Do you mean water come out of a jawbone of a donkey?
Are you kidding me? He doesn't need it to be a rock
that's so big that looks like New Hampshire granite.
You know what he needs? Thanks, Rick.
You know what he needs? He needs to do whatever he deems
necessary and supply the people with their water.
I don't know if you know this, but Israel was a mess.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but God was good to them
despite the fact they were a mess because a lot of what took
place that we just read happened after they got themselves into
trouble and not before. John 73738 Going back to the
living water, imagine this, Jesus in the last day of the
feast stood up and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let
him come unto me and drink. He that believeth all me, as a
Scripture has said, said out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water, proclaiming himself to be that living water
from the rock that was smitten. And God was good to the people
of Israel. But like I said, despite his
goodness, they didn't do good. Look at verse 5.
But with many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were
overthrown in the wilderness. Well, how did they sin?
Well, we'll see that in a moment because it's of great relevance.
But it's a reminder to us just in looking at this.
But with many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were
overthrown in the wilderness. Let's read verse 6.
If I'm going to stop you, don't go too far.
Now these things were our examples.
Stop. Paul is saying everything I just
told you and what is about to come.
But everything he just told you is our example because even
though God was good to them, they weren't good to God.
So Paul starts right here. And he says this, you need to
know what happened in the past. You can read on later verse 6
and verse #11 as well. We'll look at that in a minute.
But you need to know what goes on in the past because it will
help you avoid making the mistakes of the future.
You ever heard this before? Those who fail to learn from
history are doomed to repeat it. And people that think the Old
Testament or even the Bible itself is irrelevant to life
today are missing out on thousands of years of learned
experience of people that didn't love God and some that loved God
and then didn't do what God told them to do.
And also of the experience of those who did love God and
followed God and gave us a path of which to follow so we can
succeed in this Christian life. We were in Scotland a few weeks
ago and. We went to a place called
Sterling, Scotland, and there was a battle there from William
Wallace. And no, I'm not talking about a
movie, all right. But there was a real man named
William Wallace who fought in a battle called the Battle of
Sterling Bridge. And what's amazing about going
to a place as old as Scotland? You know, Easton's 300 years
old. And I thought that was old till
I went over there. And they've got like
toothbrushes that are older than that over there.
And actually, I think about probably not.
But anyway, we stood on the bridge of where the battle took
place. Now it wasn't the same bridge
because the battle was in 1298. But this, this bridge was new.
It was built in 1400s and we stood on this bridge.
And you can see how the battle took place.
What William Wallace did was he caused this large contingent of
those from England to pass on a narrow bridge.
And then on the other side, they got caught in marshy ground and
then someone came behind and took the pins out of the bridge.
To be able to separate the groups from one another and
William Wallace won and the and the Scottish people win a huge
victory against the people of England that day in narrowing
them down and then getting them on the other side.
Say, Pastor, why is that important?
Well, there was a battle hundreds of years before called
the Battle of Thermopylae in the Greco Persian War.
And you may not know what I'm talking about, but you may have
heard of the Spartans who ended up getting a much larger
contingent to go into a very small space and ended up not
winning the battle, but really winning the day because they
were able to keep that larger contingent at Bay for a longer
period of time. What are you saying, Pastor?
You can learn some things from history.
Ask Hitler about going to Russia in winter.
He could have learned from Napoleon.
We could go on and on this evening just about history, just
about military history, but I'm not here to talk to you about
military history, as much as I love history.
No, I love this word more. And I'm here to tell you tonight
there are some people who have gone on before us, including the
people of Israel who showed us some things to do and that
showed us some things not to do. What do we need to do?
Follow their example of what we should do.
Follow their example of what we should avoid.
Get in the word and know what this word says because they are
an example for us. So we're going to look back at
the past of Israel. But #2 Paul also says this.
He wants us to look at our present efforts.
Look at our present efforts. Pick back up again in verse 6
where it says now these things are examples to the intent.
What we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.
Now Paul's going to hear in this next point present some things
that Israel did wrong. He talked about all the
blessings that they had. He says despite this, there were
some things that they did wrong. Now in my Bible I have in
brackets here, the word should not.
Now you know, if you go into the Greek and you look at that word,
should not you know what it means?
Should not means don't do it, OK?
Don't let somebody try to talk to you out of what this means
says don't do it. When it comes the issue of lust,
don't do it now. What's the first word of verse
#7 Can you say that out loud? What's the first word of verse
#8 What's the first word of verse #9 What's the first word
of verse #10 Say, pastor, isn't your job to talk right now?
No, but I like giving a rest and let you all doing it together.
All right, should. Not neither.
Neither, neither, neither. I have those old bracket in my
Bible. Why is that?
Because there's some things that God says.
The people of Israel should not have done.
They shouldn't have done this, neither should they have done
this, neither should they have done this, and on and on it
goes. Well, what should they have not
done? Don't lust after evil things as
they also lusted to. Verse #7 Neither be adulterers.
Verse #8 Neither let us commit fornication.
Verse #9 Neither let us tempt Christ.
Verse 10 Neither murmur ye says they shouldn't have done these
things. Did they do those things in the
wilderness? They did them in spades.
Why do you think they marched around for 40 years?
They did it before it caused them to go for 40 years, and
they did it during the 40 years they were disobedient.
Now, considering the fact that the people of Israel were
wandering around the wilderness somewhere around 1300 years or
so before Jesus Christ walked this earth in His incarnation,
let me ask yourself, let's ask ourselves this question.
We're looking at maybe 3300 years of history between US and
the people of Israel. That's that's just an
estimation, but let's just say it's a long time.
Do you think people deal with lust today?
Do you think people deal with idolatry?
Today you think fornication is a problem, Today do.
You think tempting Christ is a problem today?
I think murmuring is a problem today.
You know, it's interesting. Paul's not writing this to us.
He's writing this to Corinth. Let's remind ourselves of who
this is being written to. It doesn't say First Liberty
chapter 10. You know, I understand who this
is being addressed to tonight is very relevant for us.
I'm not trying to take that away, but I'm talking about the
person, the people that was written to was the people at
Corinth that there was the people of Israel.
They did these things and then about 1300 years later there's
people in Corinth. What are they doing?
They're doing these things. And we look about not quite 2000
years later and what do we see? People are still doing these
things. We're not as special as we think
we are. Does it look?
Differently. Sure it does.
Is it more accessible? We could argue yes, but are
these still the root? Issues of life for our flesh.
The answer is yes, and as such the word Internet may not be in
your Bible. Actually, if it isn't.
Your Bible. You got the wrong Bible.
The word smartphone is not in your Bible.
The word nicotine is not in your Bible.
But the. Issues of life, no matter what
you look for, are all found in this blessed book.
It was relevant for the people of Israel.
It was relevant for the people of Corinth and is relevant for
us today in the present. Do people deal with lust today?
Well, that's the first one listed.
Absolutely. By the way, the people of Israel
were lustful after the men of Israel, lustful after women.
That was an issue of bail peor, but they also fell in their
lusts to quail. You say pastor who lusts after
quail. Well, the Bible tells us that
they were had this inordinate affection because they didn't
want bread anymore. That came from God.
And they said, boy, oh, man, we're in Egypt.
We ate well. Yeah, right.
You ate real well. That's why you're slaves.
This isn't my message. But sin distorts your thinking
about everything. That's why you can look at
something that is a substance that will hurt your life and you
say this makes my life better. That's why you can look at
something that you know could destroy marriage and say it
could make it better. That's why you could look at an
action or a thought process and think that it will make you
wiser, but it actually makes you more dense spiritually, because
this is what sin does. It distorts what reality is.
And they look at this, the idea of having quail as something
that's remarkable because they had so much food in Egypt and
they didn't have a lot of food in Egypt.
That's why they're crying to God to get them out of Egypt.
Amongst everything else, they lusted after those things.
They were idolaters After the calf, they were fornicators.
As I mentioned at Bale Pure with Moab, remember Balaam couldn't
curse them and Balaam found an end around and that was this he
told the people Moab try to get your women that don't love God
to get together and carnal relationships with the men of
Israel and it did the trick and men's hearts were turned from
God. They tempted the Lord.
Numbers 21, verse 5 And the Lord and the people spake against
God, against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us up
out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
For there is no bread, neither is there any water.
And our soul. Lo, this, this light bread.
After God did all of that, they kept saying, God, what are you
going to do next? That sound familiar to anybody?
OK, it does, because nobody said anything good.
Let me come down here for a minute.
God's been good to you. Amen.
Let me just ask you this, how many times He has to prove
Himself to you now? How many more times does He have
to prove Himself to you? We get to the point that we're
not careful, we're tempting Christ.
How many more things does He have to do for you?
Well, God, if you just do this one more thing, the fact He
saved your soul ought to be enough for me to save, serve Him
for a lifetime. But I'm worried about how much I
have in my bank. And if He doesn't come through
the way I do, the way I want, then He's not good enough.
That's tempting. Christ's friend say, well, well,
Christ isn't here. Well, he wasn't there with
Israel. He was there and he's here and
murmuring. Murmuring.
You know God killed more people from murmuring than anything
else in the Bible. God killed more people from
murmuring. Than any other thing else in the
Bible. You can look it up.
See I thought it would be something else.
And if I'm wrong, which I know it's hard to believe, but if I
was wrong, don't tell me, it's not high on the list.
Depends on how you reckon it. But I would say that it is #1 if
not very high on the top, but we think of it as just something
that's very minimal and very small.
But God looks at it differently. So what do we see here?
They were dealing with it all those years ago, and we're still
dealing with it today. The question is why does this
generation of Christians think we're exempt from these issues?
And I would even go a little bit farther and say this because it
makes clear here that God says don't do this, neither do this,
neither this, neither this, neither this.
So why does this generation of Christian also often think, and
I'm talking in generalities here.
What is this generation often think that we are exempt from
the holy living that God commands us to have in the
Bible. Yeah, that response is why it
doesn't get preached normally, because nobody likes it.
My flesh doesn't like hearing that.
My flesh doesn't want to say it because I know I'm going to have
to be accountable to it. But God says don't.
Do it. And he said it to people.
The Old Testament don't do it. He said it to people in the New
Testament. Corinth, you shouldn't do it
either. And he's saying to us today,
don't do it. Be a different people.
A peculiar people, Titus, chapter 2 zealous of good works,
that we ought to be different now.
The people of Israel were blessed.
Have you been blessed? Yes, the people of Israel were.
The people of God, by the way, I should mention, are still the
people of God. God's still working through
them, even though they don't follow him.
God's still working in his program through them.
But let me ask you this, are we also in one sense, the people of
God? We've been adopted in the
family, haven't we? If we've been blessed and we're
the people of God, just as they were blessed and they were the
people of God, and they fell far away, couldn't the same easily
be said of us if we're not careful?
God still cares about holy living.
There are people who say, well, let's just Pharisaical often
times, Liz, I'm not saying there can't be Pharisaical attitudes
out there and we need to avoid those because you know what?
Pharisaical attitudes are sin. It's also sin to be proud of
your holiness. Guess what?
You don't have as much to be proud of as you think you do.
We're just sinners saved by the grace of God, and we know who we
are, where we come from, and where we're going.
But we know it's not because of us, it's because of Him.
But if that could happen to the people of Israel, couldn't
happen to us. And if it happened to the people
of Israel, and God said they shouldn't have done it, and
Paul's looking at the people of Corinth and saying, you
shouldn't do it, where does that put us?
Well, we shouldn't do it either. So we see the past of Israel.
We see the present with their actions.
But #3 I also see this looking for our future escape.
Go down to verse #13 drop down to #13 Here's a verse that
you've heard before. And I tell you, put this in your
pocket right here. There hath no temptation taken
you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful that
that really goes back to going back to there.
I was about to go ahead. That cuts back to what we're
saying when you think you're the only one that's been having the
hard times. We've all had hard times.
No, I'm not trying to diminish the hardness that you've gone
through, but I will say this. You are not allowed to take the
hardness and the harshness of your life and use it as an
excuse to live life however you want to live it.
You're not allowed. And that's true whether you're
the one that dug yourself in the hole or whether someone else put
you in that hole and try to put the cover on top and lock it.
Either way, you are not entitled to act however you want because
you are the first person who's gone this way.
You're not that special, you know, I'm not saying you're not
special to the Lord. Don't.
Don't get weird on me here. I'm just saying you're not the
first person to go through these issues.
And that's not meant to be a slam.
That's meant to be a comfort, because you're not a pioneer
going down the Oregon Trail who's gonna end up dying with
dysentery. Some of you by a certain age
might understand what I'm talking about as a computer
game. But anyway, you're not the first
person, OK? It wasn't funny, I'll admit it,
all right? But you're not the first person
like a pioneer. There's a lot of people who've
gone before who have had very unique situations much like
yours. And Gods help them, He'll help
you. There's no temptation taking
you. But such as common to man, if
you If you only circled 4 words in your Bible, maybe this should
be it. But God is faithful.
If you only circle 4 words in your Bible, maybe it would be.
But God is faithful. It's an answer to a lot of
questions. I had someone on Sunday
afternoon asking me some hard questions.
And I'm not saying that I couldn't answer them.
I, I, I answered them the best I could from the Bible.
But I mean hard questions from life, you know, you know what I
mean. And really it comes down to this
much of what he was asking me. Do you believe that God is
faithful? Do you believe that he's
faithful? Because if you don't, then you
see in every shadow you see God as a sinister being, and instead
we in every crevice of his creation we see nothing but God
or God at work. This is what we see.
God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above
that which you're able, but will with the temptation also make a
way of to escape that you may be able to bear it.
Satan would destroy us in a minute if God let him.
Satan want to destroy Job, Satan want to destroy Peter.
But any temptation that we go through, any difficulty that we
go through that comes from the hand of Satan has been filtered
through the Father first. Do I understand all that?
I don't know that I do, but I do know this.
God is not unaware of what is taking place in this world.
There is nowhere where Satan is moving the chess pieces on this
world where he has put a check or checkmate on to God.
Where God said I didn't see that move.
God says I didn't, I was going to play it that way and look at
how he played it. No, God is in control and even
in your temptation He is so good.
He'll make a way of escape and He's good.
All temptation is filtered through our Heavenly Father and
we need not worried if a temptation can be handled.
You know, there are times that sin feels like an out of body
experience. There are times that you can go
through and make decisions and it almost feels like you're on
autopilot and you're just doing it and feeling it.
And it's almost like you just can't stop yourself.
And you wonder, is there a way to escape?
And I want you to know that even in the midst when you feel like
that, you can drop to your knees and there's a way to escape now,
help you with something. Usually the way of escape is
much easier when you're not that close to the sin.
You know, it's a lot easier to escape the bottle if you don't
go to the places that have the bottle.
It's a lot easier to escape using if you stay away from the
people who use. It's a lot easier to stay away
from anger if you avoid the triggers.
Now you say my triggers are people.
I know it's hard. I'm sorry for that.
You're going to you're going to struggle with that.
I know, I know. Yeah, maybe you could.
Maybe you can work remote the rest of your life.
I don't know. But even then, you could just
punch out your screen. So what are you going to do?
What I'm saying is the way of escape doesn't have to be at the
last possible moment. God, why didn't you come
through? Well, maybe God could say I gave
you about 100 chances on that off ramp and you didn't take any
of them. Now, is sin different today in
the sense that it comes to us differently?
Yes. The sin of pornography is so
much more pervasive than it was 50 years ago.
It's so much poor pervasive than it was 30 years ago.
Who could have ever imagined that you could find pornography
in your pocket? So what are you talking about,
this device? Who could have imagined?
And there's some who willingly put it in a child's hands and
not even know what they're doing.
I'm not, I'm not telling you when you should give your child
a cell phone. That's not my business.
I'm not the priest. You're home.
But we'll tell you this. I wouldn't have my child a
loaded gun and I sure wouldn't hand them a phone without some
kind of restrictions because I love them far too much.
That's right, pastor. They're they're, they're pure.
Their minds are pure. So should yours.
And there's some off ramps that God's helped you with.
Take them. When you miss one, take the next
one, take the off ramp. God's made a way of escape.
We're getting ready to close here.
There's more I could say. I don't know, maybe maybe you
feel like this this evening. You think pastor is good, but
it's, it's not really for me. Like it's like, like I'm beyond
this. I'm doing pretty well in my
spiritual life. You say, pastor, nobody thinks
like that. You'd be surprised.
Now, most people won't say that. They would never say it, but we
and I say we because if I'm not careful, it can come to me as
well. It's not that we say it, but we
just act in a way that seems above it all.
Did you hear me say we? I'm including myself in that.
We all could. The pride of the flesh could
just, I don't know. I mean, it's me.
I mean, pastor, I've been saved for a lot of years.
Or pastor, I'm better than I used to be.
You're better than what you used to be, but you ain't what God
wants you to be. If you think Christian is just
about getting better, you've missed the mark.
Christian is about being like Christ.
He didn't save you to make you better.
You could find a program to make you better.
God wants to transform you into the image of his Son.
But if you have that thought process, if you struggle with it
like I do, Paul, drop verse #12 in for us.
Wherefore let him that thinketh, he standeth.
Take heed lest default. Just when you think you know it,
you're about to find out you don't.
Just when you think you're in a place where you know better,
Satan says I got my boy right where I want him.
I got my girl right where I want her because she thinks she's
doing fine. That's the perfect way of
knowing she's not doing fine. He thinks he's doing great.
He's not doing great. If you're a senior St. with us
here tonight, if you've been saved a long time, it's easy to
hear these messages and just think, I mean, I don't really
deal with most of these things may remind you that when it
comes the issue of lust, when it comes the issue of fornication,
when it comes the issue of murmuring, when it comes the
issue of idolatry, far before the actions come the thoughts.
We'll prove that pastor. Well, may I introduce you to
Jesus Christ because he says when it comes the issue of
adultery, way before the physical act comes down to
thinking, right? Way before the issue of murder,
it comes down to thinking right. So maybe you look at that list
and you're thinking, well, I mean, I don't don't commit
fornication. I'm doing all right.
Lost is not that much of a problem for me.
I'm doing all right. I don't tempt Christ, so I'm
doing OK. Well, I don't deal with these
things. And you may not deal with those
things on the outside the way you think you do, but you better
watch the thought process and the heart because Satan can so
easily slip that in. And we think we're good.
We turn to first Peter chapter 1 very quickly.
First Peter chapter one. I'm trying to decide if we
should turn there. We're going to turn there.
First Peter chapter 1, verse #13 because this could be you
tonight. I made mention of this a couple
weeks ago in the message that I preached about David having a
breakdown. But let's look at this further.
Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind.
You know, girding up the loins of your mind.
Is that the looseness? The slackness is there?
Cinch it up. That's what girding the loins
would be. Get that slack to cinch it up.
Be sober, hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought
unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient
children, not fashioning yourselves according the former.
Lust, your ignorance, what does it say?
But as he which hath called you is holy, so in the same manner
I'm not adding that. I'm saying that's what that word
so is. In the same manner, be holy in
all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be holy,
for I am holy. You know, churches do the most
for the world when they look the least like the world, and people
do the most for the world when they look the least like the
world. People are watching.
I could tell you stories of
people that I've interacted with that have come across church
members from Liberty Baptist Church that I've had to
apologize for that person being part of Liberty Baptist Church.
Hey, pastor, what are you talking about that someone says,
oh, I know someone from that church.
And now I can't say that I can believe everything they say
because that's just there's a word against what happened.
I will say this, shame on us if we're not the people God has
called us to be because there's the people that are counting on
us to be like Christ. Well, how do we know what to do?
Oh, to be like Christ. I need to look to the Gospels.
That's true. But you also look at the New
Testament and guess what? You should look at the Old
Testament. It was all written, for example.
It's all written for our help. And I'm not just telling you to
read your Bible. Hey, read your Bible.
That's good. Be a person of the Bible.
Let your thought process be of the Bible.
Let the Bible be a major part of your day.
Why? Because let this mind be in you,
which was also in Christ Jesus. We're not so special that we're
only ones going through trouble. It's gone through in the past.
It's gone through in the present.
Go through in the future. Let's see the road map that
God's given us in His Word. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.