First Corinthians 10-6-10 The failure of Israel in the wilderness

So today we're going to look at Israel's journey in the wilderness and their failure there. And here's the outline that we've been using from Macaulay. We covered last week, we covered the part where Israel's blessing and we're going to talk about that again today a little bit. And then verse 5 kind of talks about what's been called their fall where it describes the beginning of their There are four different events that Paul's going to highlight of their Israel journey where God was not well pleased with them. We're going to look through that in pretty much quite a bit of detail. Then next week we're going to kind of wind it up with the application of that.

All right, so from last week, all our fathers were under the cloud. They all followed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. And they went through the Red Sea on dry land, as we talked about last week. And they were baptized into the cloud, into the sea, it says. They were identified with Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

And that, you know, really neat parallel with our identification with Christ. And then they're talking about this spiritual food and spiritual drink. What's interesting is it's not just, they didn't just say, Paul didn't just say it's food and drink. He says it's spiritual food and spiritual drink. So we find out that the spiritual food and spiritual drink is talking about the Lord Jesus in the manna and in the water that is provided by God. So let's just look at, I'm gonna go back and revisit Hal's chart here again, a couple charts from Hal.

So comparing the Jews with Moses and the believers in Christ. So we both were baptized and identified the Jews with Moses. And you can think of Moses as being a type of Christ, if you will, because it's going to parallel the Lord Jesus so we they were baptized into the cloud the glory of God into the sea and we're baptized into the person of Christ glory of God the true glory of God and into his death burial and resurrection as as they had deliverance through the Red Sea we have deliverance from from our sin nature and there was told provision there's told provision in Israel's journey And if you think about it, there's total provision in our journey in the Christian life. We may not think that sometimes. We think, well, Lord, you missed one here. It doesn't seem like, but it's true.

We're totally secure in our Savior, as Israel was. So I mentioned spiritual food and spiritual drink, that total provision for their physical needs and total provision for our spiritual needs and the bread of life and the water of life. and then total protection. No external force could overthrow them and no external force can overthrow us. So we're kind of reviewing the comparison of the baptism of the Israelites into Moses and our baptism into Christ. And think about it, the strongest army in the world at that time, Pharaoh had 600 chariots and then I think Josephus talks about the armies that he has. Scripture just talks about the 600 chariots.

And just interestingly enough, I happened to start thinking about that, and Vonnegut did a little search, and there's some fake news out there about they've discovered some of the wheels or some part in the Red Sea. Well, it turns out that's not a true story. So we were, wow, this is something really cool. They discovered some of the ‐‐ no, they didn't. That was fake news.

And actually that's one of the things we're going to see as we go through the wilderness journey with Israel here. We're going to see their failure. We're also going to see that we don't know exactly where they traveled. We have certain ideas, certain paths. We don't know exactly because they haven't discovered, the archaeologists haven't discovered enough artifacts to know for sure where certain sites were at. So in his day it was the strongest army. In our day we have total protection in our Savior.

The verse in 2 Corinthians 4.8 talks about we are afflicted in every way but not destroyed. We're not crushed. We're not forsaken.

God is in control. We do have difficulties and trials but God is the one who decides the length of those and how they'll play out in essence. And then the third point is that no nation could overthrow them. God would fight their battles for them. The angel of the Lord went before them in many battles. And there's no principality in powers.

And in the verse that Halcord here was the one in Romans 8 talking about what can separate us from the love of God. trials or tribulations, all those things cannot separate us. So we're inseparable from the love of God, and we're inseparable from His plan for us to be with Him for all eternity in glory. So we do have trials on this earth, but they're under His purview. We talked about this baptism and identification comparison.

So now I want to go on to one verse from last week that it talks about Israel's fall. And this is a verse that says, Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness. So let's kind of just review a little bit about that. So this is a strong contrast and we just talked about the provision of Israel in the wilderness. But God, it says God was not well pleased. So what was He not well pleased about? And it says He wasn't pleased with the majority of them, but most of them.

And it turned out, if you think about it, if you go through the whole wilderness journey and they get to the promised land, how many go into the promised land? Of the original, only two, Joshua and Caleb. That's pretty bad stats, right? All this way, 40 years, and then only two of you get, only their children got to go in. It's pretty sad, pretty sad.

Anyway, so we're gonna see what happened to Israel in verses six through 10 here shortly. And we know this passage is given to give us instruction and the phraseology is really interesting when we get to verse 6 here about this example and how important this example is. And it almost sounds impossible but I'm not saying what I but we'll see. Okay, let's just carry on here.

Okay, they were laid low in the wilderness, the Israelites. Laid low is the idea, it's not a pretty picture. They were scattered, scattered corpses in the desert, were destroyed, and that's what happened. Many died before they ever got to the Jericho, before they were going to go in. Many died along the way. And it says in Numbers 14, 16, because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which he promised by an oath, Therefore he slaughtered them in the wilderness. Not a real pretty picture. Okay, so now, here's our verses for today. Now these things happened as an example for us so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Now we see the next four verses are the four failures of Israel.

Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. This is Paul speaking, right? And he's talking to the Corinthians, because the Corinthians have a similar lay of the land, if you will. They've come out of idolatry. And so the Israelites, they're told not to, and they've come out of idolatry in a sense before they became Israelites. So anyway, there's a similar pattern. So Paul says, do not be idolaters, as some of them were. as it is written, the people sat down to eat and stood up to play. And we're going to see what that means.

So what's interesting is in these verses, in these four verses, the last part of the verse helps us to isolate, well, where in the wilderness journey are they talking about? And what I found was these are not in order. It's not like, The first one is not necessarily the beginning of the wilderness journey, and the last one is not the end. They're kind of just the Lord picked out, I'll pick this one, and this one, and this one, and that one. And they're not necessarily in order. I would like they were in order. I was gonna have a little map with arrows and one, two, three, and it doesn't work out that way.

So anyway, just, but the first part tells you their sin, if you will, or their failure. The second part kind of connects it back to the Old Testament journey. So verse 8 says, now let us not act immorally as some of them did and 23,000 fell in one day. You know, God means business. He was not, as they say, He was not a happy camper. They were not, you know, they were not following what He asked them to do. Verse 9, nor let us try the Lord as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents.

That's an interesting one. That connects back to a passage in in the Old Testament in their wilderness journey. Nor grumbled, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. That's another really interesting thing. Destroyed by the destroyer. What does that mean?

Kind of some really cool things here. Okay, so let's, so first of all, let's look at this verse six, which is kind of the key verse. Now these things have been, have happened as examples for us. So it says these things, the things we're going to see shortly here in 7 through 10, so this is where literally it's they happened or it's have been made. So this is just really amazing. These things have been made as examples for us. And you kind of scratch your head and you say, they have been made as examples for us. So I just repeated that idea. And it's passive voice. God is the one who's doing the action. These things have been made.

It's almost like, and this sounds kind of crazy, God had the whole nation of Israel do all these things, go through the wilderness, all that, just so we get an example in scripture. We say, Roger, that's crazy. Why would he do, I mean, but that's what the language says.

Only God knows the end from the beginning. So he states it as if I made this all happen so that we could read Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, and it would say these things have happened as an example for us, so we won't do what they did. It's just all, it's really interesting. I thought that just was amazing. And I said, only God is able to make a statement like that.

You know, we say, oh, this happened to work out. This is a good example, like with our kids. That was a good example for you, Johnny, or Charlie, or Sarah, or whatever. But we can't make the example. God can make the example. And He can do it all in conjunction with saving, you know, all with taking Israel through all this. It's just amazing.

And the word example here is this word that kind of shows up a lot in the New Testament. typos, it's the idea of an example, it can be used for admonition in this case. So Constable says this experience of the Israelites in the wilderness are types, two posses, that they were early examples of situations that would recur later. Okay, and they were done with a purpose at, so that with a purpose at, God is purposeful, so that We, includes Paul, includes himself and the Corinthians, would not or should not crave evil things or desire after evil things. And it's a subject compliment, which it just kind of focuses back on the subject, excuse me.

And then it's in two words here, which I'm not gonna really dig into a lot, a little bit in the next chart, but the idea of craving evil things. And craving is the idea of longing or wanting something really bad. The word desire is in there. And there are wonderful desires you can have, but when they're not focused on what God has for you, they can be evil desires or evil cravings. And evil can mean, as it says there, the idea of bad in the heart, conduct, character.

And what you're going to find is that some of the things that the Israelites craved were not evil within themselves. Like if I like the Broncos, does that make the Broncos evil? Some might not like the Broncos and they have an opinion. But the object or the thing isn't necessarily evil within itself, but it's evil as you you know, if that becomes your focus of your life, you've got a problem. So that's kind of the idea there. As they also crave, so let's just look at a few things that Israelites, a few verses that talk about that.

In Numbers 11.4, the rabbles, the non-Israelites, were among them, had greed, desires, and also the sons of Israel, wept again and said, who will give us meat to eat?

And then in Psalm 104.14, it says, but they craved intensely in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert. So Macaulay, this is a really good point. These two bullets from Macaulay, they were one paragraph, I just kind of split it up. And this is addressing the idea of the evil things. The things Israel craved are said to be evil.

What were they? In Numbers 11, four through nine, it lists some of these. Some of them were fish, cucumbers, leeks, garlics. If you look back in that passage, And the last point, it's obvious that these things are not innately evil. Why then were they evil? They were evil because they were desired in place of God's provision. And boy, I don't know about you, but that speaks to me a lot. Because many times I'll think, Well, if I had my way, Lord, it would have been this way, and it's not that way.

And you can become grumbly, mumbly, and we're all there. So the Israelites are no different than us. They got tired of the manna, even though the manna, I've heard descriptions, some people think it was the most delicious thing out there going, but after 40 years, I'm sure any of us, if any food would get kind of tired, we'd be kind of tiresome after 40 years of steak, and that's all you had maybe, and they didn't like the quail, right? They got meat and they didn't like that, so any food for 40 years might get a little, much the same. But that was God's provision, and so we need to think about that. When we have things in our life and God has provided something for us, I know. Think carefully. So we're going to see all these examples along that line. Okay. So now, so I have ‐‐ I asked Mike to send me his map when we taught Exodus. So I didn't take his map. I got another map. I can't be satisfied. So as I mentioned, And I don't have a pointer to point to these things I know I can do easily.

So in the upper left-hand corner there, not the little legend, but below that is where they left Egypt in Ramses. And they took a couple ‐‐ possibly took some different paths. The one path that has the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on in the little dots there, little black dots. That's the traditional route that most people think. But there's another route that other people have proposed. It's kind of the dotted red and green route that kind of goes across the middle of the wilderness area there. And where they crossed the Red Sea, some think it was to the left, there by, I can't pronounce the name of that, by number three I think it is. But some think it's possible.

Anyway, there's different opinions. So what I did here, I took the four, the four illustrations, and I kind of put them in here. The first one is Mount Sinai. And Mount Sinai is at the very bottom of the page there. That's where we think it is. I guess that probably is, I guess, I'm not sure if it's the Mount Sinai of the day, it probably is.

So his admonition here is stop becoming idolaters. The next one here, in the text, not in order of what happened, this actually occurred right before they went into, they went across Jericho. It occurred at a place called Shittim. Stop, the idea is stop committing sexual immorality. The third one in the order in the text is Mount Hora, a whore. Stop putting the Lord to the test. And then the fourth one is Tabartha, Tabartha. and it's stop grumbling. So those four things got highlighted. And I was able to find, you know, you go out on the Internet, you type in pictures amount, this happens to be the golden calf, pictures of the golden calf. And, you know, you get hundreds. So your job is to decide which one fits the text. So I chose some, and I'll let you think, see what you think. So let's go here. Okay, the first one.

There's a story that goes with this one. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were, and it is written, the people sat down to eat and stood up to play. Well this picture is actually a painting. And we're kind of fans of Jeopardy. So I had picked this a couple weeks ago. I already had it in for this lesson. So we're watching Jeopardy, and a clue comes up. Boom, this picture comes up. I go, whoa.

And the question was, what animal is that in that picture? And they missed it. They didn't know what the animal was. It's supposed to be a golden calf. But the more amazing thing is, this is a picture called Adoration of the Golden Calf. It's by a French painter, painted in the 1600s. Well, the guy didn't have a good model. He didn't paint a calf. He painted a full-grown bull. So if you look carefully, if I can blow that up, you'll see that's a pretty big animal. That's not a calf. So he didn't do his homework really well. So I thought that was kind of hilarious. But it was kind of amazing.

We're watching Jeopardy. Ryan sometimes comes in, and we're We're competing, we take the score, who's the best? I never win, I'm always last. Monty and Ryan are the big guys in this. They're fighting for the lead. Anyway, I'm getting carried away with this.

Okay, enough of that. So anyway, so this event is described by the last part, that people sat down to eat and stood up to play. So let's look at the text here. And it's, do not be idolaters. And it's an action that's already ongoing. So you could, Weiss renders it, stop being idolaters. That's his rendering, which I like. The action is going on and the Lord's command is, don't do that, stop being idolaters.

So the text that we have here, the first part is in Exodus chapter 32, verse four. So this is the case where Moses is missing. Moses is missing an action, right? He's up on the mountainside, he goes up there. He's up there for 40 days. And people get, 40 days go by, less than 40 days, and they say, this Moses guy, he's nowhere around.

Aaron, what should we do? And he says, well, pull off all your gold stuff, and I'll make you a golden calf. So this is kind of starting to mill the text here. And he, Aaron, took this from their hand, the gold that they had, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it into a molten calf, and they said, this is your God, notice the small G, Israel who brought it brought you up from the land of Egypt some have said They really were not saying this is the God they were saying this is a representation of God I didn't I couldn't quite verify that, but it's interesting, it is a small gene, it is not the most sacred name for God, which is Yahweh, this is Elohim. So that's kind of a rabbit trail, anyway.

Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation, tomorrow shall be the feast to the Lord. So the next day they rose up early and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. So there's what connects it with our passage in Corinthians.

So let's go on and here another verse that talks about this in Acts 7.41. At that time he made a calf and brought it as a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the work of their hands. So the Israelites, the Israelites here were participating in idolatry and ate and played in the presence of the golden calf. That's from Exodus 32, 6.

And it's possible that some think that there could be sexual immorality going on at the same time. The text doesn't say that, but they wonder about that, because that was kind of a typical pattern. You know, what I found as I went through this, you think, why is Israel getting sucked into all this stuff? It seems like that They were, in a sense, jealous of the heathen religions. And the heathen religions were all idolatrous and all had sexual immorality involved. They all had that. So the Israelites just got sucked into that all the time. That was their constant failure.

In many, many passages, you'll see that. So last point here. The scene on occasion must have been similar to what happened to the feast some of the Corinthians attended. So Paul is kind of saying this happened to the nation of Israel with idolatry and all these things and this reminds you Corinthians of what you had in the temple of all those temples they had with all the bad stuff going on there. Don't you see how Israel fell? Don't go down that path. Okay. So the next one is let us not act immorally. And this is not committing sexual immorality.

And the passage here is in Numbers 25.1. And this occurred, let's see, this occurred, this is actually, so we kind of switched, that was, the first one was at the time period when they were giving the law and Moses was on the mountain. And this is at the end of the wilderness journey, they're about ready to go across the Jordan into Jericho.

So in Numbers 25.1 it says, And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit fornication with the daughters of Moab. And the reason they did that, and he refers to that and says, well they're just going out randomly and just doing that. No, this is all part of some big religious feast. And verse 2 kind of tells us that. And they invited the people.

Israel to sacrifice to their God and and they ate and bowed down to their gods So they got even though they knew Jehovah Moses had taught they had had excellent instructions, so to speak They still got sucked into these bad practices and Israel joined himself to Belpior and the anger of the Lord Jehovah was kindled against them So Moses said to the judges this is pretty pretty harsh judges were his helpers and in in and taking care of these million people or so. He says, each of you slay the men who have joined themselves to Baal Peor. So those who died by the plague were 24,000.

There's a slight discrepancy in the text in Corinthians. It has 23,000 and this has 24,000. It seems like the answer to this is, if you look in the text in Corinthians, it says in one day, And this says that's apparently the total number. That's what we think. Notice how sometimes, even in the news today, there'll be different accounts, different numbers. They argue over what number is right. Well, Scripture is accurate, and I think it was accurate for each of the writers. Moses in one case and Paul in the other case. And the other point is that it was a plague. This mass killing was considered a plague.

Anyway. Okay, so that's number two. The second, the third one, let us not try the Lord, and this is at a different time. And this is, let's see, where are they at here? This is when they had the, let's see, let's just go ahead and read the text. And what's interesting here is that it seems like let us not try the Lord, there are, you know some manuscripts including the interlinear the best manuscripts suggest that Christ rather than the Lord is correct here Paul again stresses that it was Christ that both the Israelites and the Corinthians were testing so that the passage here in Numbers is So actually, it's Mount Hor, H-O-R.

They set out from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. Apparently, they didn't want to go through Edom. That was going to be a problem. And the people became impatient on the journey. And the people spoke to God and Moses, why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food, no water. We loathe the miserable food. So what happened, the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so many people of Israel died. But there's more to the story.

So the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned because we have spoken against the Lord. And you, intercede with us that he may remove the serpent from us. And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent, and this is interesting, you know, someone said, boy, this seems like kind of off the wall.

They're being bitten by serpents. So he says, take one of the serpents and put him on a pole. I assume he was dead. Make a fiery, or maybe it was just a replica. Make a fiery serpent and set it on the standard, and it shall come about that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, will live.

And Moses made a bronze serpent, so it's bronze, I'm sorry, if I read the text I would know my answer. It made a bronze serpent and it set it on a standard and it came about that if the serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

So this is just really interesting, so much a picture of faith that we exercise in our Savior. And what's really neat is, God in His wisdom has preserved this picture in the New Testament. In John 3, 14 and 15, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so even must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. And the next verse in this is John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. So it's marvelous that the Old Testament so many times is pictures.

A picture of what's something we need to remember about what God has done, what He's accomplished, and how His solution is a solution that is for us now. And certainly the idea of looking unto the Savior, looking unto Him for your salvation is what this is all about. So the fourth one is about grumbling. Nor grumbling, and it's literally, again, stop grumbling, we surrenders it, based on the fact that it's imperative mood, stop grumbling.

And grumbling here, it's one of these, like the word buzz, if I say buzz, the word buzz, if I say that, the definition of that word sounds like the sound, right? Buzz is buzz, right? Well, this word in the Greek, It sounds like grumble. I'm not sure I can pronounce it. But the word in the Greek for grumbling sounds like grumbling in the Greek. And I can't pronounce the Greek, so anyway. That probably doesn't, not too helpful, but anyway.

Anyway, what's interesting here is that, you know, grumbling or complaining was one of the main issues with Israel in the wilderness, and there are 10 recorded instances of that in Exodus and Numbers, and this is one of them. Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord.

And when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them, and consumed them on the outskirt of the camp. The Lord therefore cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died out. So the name of the place was called Tabertha because the fire of the Lord burned them there. Because the fire of the Lord burned them.

So what's interesting here is that, and the last part is, and they were destroyed by the destroyer. So here's some additional information in the Old Testament in numbers there, I think it was numbers, right? number is it didn't really talk about this destroyer. It just talked about people being burned. But there's actually this part, new information that Paul provides here. They were destroyed by the destroyer. And the idea is to perish. They died.

And destroyer actually in the In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, that word describes the angel of death that we see in Egypt, the firstborn. So it's like the angel of death was involved in this particular situation and people died at the Lord's command there. So here Paul adds that God executed His wrath by using an angel, a fact that Moses did not mention in Numbers.

Okay, some final thoughts. you know we haven't changed we aren't any different than the Israelites like I mentioned we like any food would be probably a bit much if we had it for 40 years so we haven't changed and our sin nature hasn't changed if we trust in the Lord Jesus we still have a sin nature and that nature can desire just like the Israelites sin nature desire to can desire things that we should not desire Paul tells us these things have been made, this is incredible, have been made as an example for us. So God's pretty serious about this. The object, the objects themselves are not evil, like the food in Egypt was not necessarily evil. But the problem was, the evil was because they desired that in place of God's provision. That's why I kind of said this is kind of a real, you know, something to think about.

And a verse that came to mind was the one in Philippians 4.19, and my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. God is standing behind his word that he will take us to be with him for all eternity and he supplied all our needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. So many times we maybe don't feel that way we think differently but God has declared it and this is a case where we were asked to believe it and trust that what he's done is right so let's just close in prayer and then we'll have we'll pass out the elements for the Lord's table dear father we thank you for this time in your word Lord thank you for the blessings we have thank you for the example and you've told us that you made this example expressly for us and you've given it in your word and we pray that we would Take it take it to heart so to speak and remember what you provided for us and to be thankful for what you've given us and and to trust you As we walk in and in this life in Christ's name Amen