Avoiding Moral and Spiritual Failure

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The Titanic has come up in conversation several times recently in my vehicle. The kids and I have strange conversations anyway, but I think they had talked about the Titanic at school, and it had been a question during one of the academic team practices, and then we got in the car one day and they were discussing the Titanic on the radio. And I know Benjamin’s really interested in the Titanic.

When I was his age, I was fascinated by it. That was before that movie came out. Kind of ruined it for me.

I was not a fan of that movie. But I used to study the Titanic and the things that happened and the people that were on board and all these things. And as we were discussing some of their questions, some of those things came back, and they’re talking about it on the radio, and we’re discussing what they could have done differently.

And for that ship to sink, if you haven’t seen the movie, sorry if I just spoiled the ending for you. But for that ship to sink, it was just a series of wrong moves. That any one of which, if they had done things differently, the ship, there’s a good likelihood the ship would not have sank.

From if they had had lookouts where they were supposed to have lookouts, things would have been better. If they had hit the iceberg head on instead of trying to turn at the last minute, it would have done less damage and the ship might have not sank. Down to the issue that if they had had enough lifeboats, even if it sank, they wouldn’t have lost as many people.

But they didn’t have enough lifeboats as it was, and they decided the ship’s not going anywhere. We’re not even going to load the lifeboats full. So a lot of people died unnecessarily.

And because of the string of events that led to the ship sinking, it’s hard to pinpoint one thing and say, well, that was the cause. That was the root of this. That’s why this was such a big deal, as far as what they did that night.

All of those decisions, though, that led to the ship sinking can be traced back to one catastrophic mistake. And that’s when the people who designed the ship, the people who built the ship, the people who promoted the ship, and the people who operated the ship all decided this ship cannot sink. When they went into it thinking it can’t happen to us, that’s when everything went wrong.

Because all of these other decisions they made were based on that prideful assumption that it can’t sink. We know from hindsight that that’s not true. The ship very much could sink and did.

But if they’d stopped and thought about it, anything that is heavier than the water, anything that’s denser than the water, you put metal in the water, if enough of the right circumstances line up, that ship can sink. But they were all convinced it could never happen to us. It never happened to this ship.

And so a lot of things were done recklessly. The Apostle Paul deals with a similar set of circumstances when it comes to our spiritual life as we come into 1 Corinthians chapter 10. If you’re guest with us this morning.

We’ve been doing a series of studying piece by piece through the book of 1 Corinthians. And so we find ourselves this morning at chapter 10 where Paul deals with this issue of moral failure and addressing the underlying thought of the Corinthians. Now it can’t happen to me.

It can’t happen to me. And all you have to do today is go on Netflix or Hulu or any streaming service. And I can just about guarantee you they’ve got at least one documentary about a church leader somewhere who thought, oh, it can’t happen to me, and now is involved in some kind of scandal where they’ve got their own show on Hulu.

When we think it can’t happen to us, that’s when we set ourselves up for failure. That’s what we’re going to look at this morning in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. If you turn there with me, if you haven’t already, go ahead and turn there with me so we can read together.

And once you find it, if you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, if you can’t find it or don’t have your Bible with you this morning, it will be on the screen for you. But we’re going to look at the first 13 verses of this chapter and see what Paul says as he’s addressing these people about the very real danger that, yes, moral and spiritual failure can happen to you. He says, for I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all drank the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness.

Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play.

nor let us act immorally as some of them did and twenty three thousand fell in one day nor let us try the Lord as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer now these things these things happened to them for an example and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

And you may be seated. So remember last week, if you were here with us, that Paul’s talking to the Corinthians about the need to protect their witness. He said some things last week at the end of chapter 9, that if we take by themselves, sound like he’s talking about salvation and having to earn salvation, or the possibility of losing salvation, but when we read everything we’ve studied in context, we realize that what he’s talking about is their witness, their ability to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and have some credibility with the people that are listening to them because of the lives that they lead.

And he talks about protecting that. And he talks about not disqualifying themselves and needing to live in such a way that they don’t disqualify themselves. Then he comes here and he’s using this as an example to the Corinthians of what it would look like to disqualify ourselves, of what it would look like to fall and stumble into something that would keep us from being the kind of witness that God has designed us to be.

The kind of witness that we want to be for Jesus Christ. The Corinthians also keep in mind, we’ve studied way back through this book several times, he’s talked about them not getting involved in the pagan feasts and the festivities at the temples. And some of them had the mindset of saying, I can go, I’m spiritually strong, it’s not going to bother me if I go and I’m there for the festivities, it’s not going to it’s not going to affect me. And Paul’s attitude was, okay, let’s set that aside for the sake of argument and say, sure, it’s not going to affect you, although we know it will.

But let’s say it’s not going to affect you, it’s going to affect others and the way they perceive you and the way they perceive the gospel. So he’s talking to these people who say, oh, I can go and participate in sort of the trappings of paganism. When it comes to living like the world, I can get my right up to that line and I’ll be fine.

I know when to stop and not step over that line. He’s talking to the Corinthian believers who thought that they could be like the world without it actually making them be like the world. Does that make sense?

That they could live and participate in worldly things without becoming worldly themselves. And he basically says, let me tell you a story. And he reminds them about the people of Israel.

Now, I think it’s interesting too that he says in chapter 10 verse 1, our fathers were under the cloud. He’s talking to a church of people who were mostly from a Greek and Roman pagan background. These were not Jewish people who had come to Christ. These were the pagans.

These were the Gentiles. And then they came to Christ. And now he says, they’re our fathers. He’s making the point to them that you are now part of Israel.

Not that you’re Jewish now, but you have been brought into a covenant relationship with the God of Israel. And you’re every bit as much of that part of that covenant as I, Paul, am, who was a Pharisee, who was circumcised, who studied under the law. You’re every bit as much part of a covenant relationship with the God of Israel as I am, and that God demands our total allegiance.

So don’t miss that when he says our fathers. He doesn’t say my father. He doesn’t say their father, their fathers.

He’s including them in the spiritual heritage of Israel. But he uses those people of Israel as an example. that even God’s people are not immune to moral and spiritual failure if we let our guard down.

We look in those first verses, he uses Israel as an example of those who’ve experienced the grace of God. And they’ve experienced it firsthand, and they’ve experienced it in numerous powerful ways. And he lists some of those ways.

As a matter of fact, this is common throughout the Old Testament and somewhat into the New Testament. This is a common thing among God’s people to sort of make a list of the ways that God has taken care of us. That would not be a bad thing to do any time of the year, but particularly as we’re coming out of the Thanksgiving season, you and I could each go back over our lives and make a list of the ways that God has taken care of us and provided for us.

No matter how dire our circumstances may be, God’s provision and protection are still evident if we look for it. So he’s telling the people about how Israel had experienced the grace of God. These people as a group had experienced the grace of God firsthand, and yet they still were able to stumble into pagan idolatry, and they were still able to participate and embrace the paganism of those around them.

Now, the point there is not shame on the pagans around them. The point is shame on them for making the choices that they made. And some of the ways they had experienced the grace of God, they had experienced God’s presence.

He talks about the cloud here. When he’s talking about the cloud, that’s in the book of Exodus where they’re coming out of Egypt after being released from slavery. And God led them by a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day.

It’s a symbol of God’s presence being among the people of Israel, that He led them Himself. And there was this visible cloud as a representation of that. And He said, all these people that we’re talking about, they experienced the presence of God, they experienced the cloud leading them.

It’s not the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of the people who followed the cloud who fell. It was the people who followed the cloud themselves. Also in verses 1 and 2, he talks about the sea being parted.

They experienced God’s protection. Each of these things that they experienced starts with a P in Adrian Rogers fashion. It just lined up that way.

But they experienced God’s presence and God’s protection when they came to the sea. That’s when Pharaoh’s army caught up with them. So they’ve got this army that’s out for blood behind them.

They’ve got the sea in front of them. They don’t know what they’re supposed to do. And God suddenly parts the waters for them to pass through on dry land.

And they experience God sparing them from being slaughtered by the Egyptians. And so these people that we’re talking about, they had experienced the protection of God firsthand as He has done something miraculous in order to save them. Then in verse 3, we see God’s provision for them.

They all ate the same spiritual food. God provided manna for them in the wilderness. They were wandering around in a desert area.

I’ve heard skeptics say, it just doesn’t make sense that that many people could wander around in that arid and barren an area for 40 years. How could they survive? How could they find enough provisions to support that kind of population?

Well, that’s really not a skeptical argument because the Israelites had that same concern, and the Bible explains how. God provided those things for them supernaturally. It says that God provided manna.

He rained down food for them. And so they had experienced God’s provision that every day they woke up and exactly what they needed for that day, God had provided. Now God provides for us, but they got to see this.

I mean, it’s like I walked out every morning and there were tacos in my front yard. I would have every reason to praise the Lord for that, right? It wasn’t tacos, but they walked out and exactly what they needed was there right in front of them and they couldn’t have provided that.

It was God. Then there’s the water from the rock, which again is God’s provision. But Paul makes the point here that they were following, they were drinking from a spiritual rock and that rock was Christ. And that’s part of the purpose of striking the rock and speaking to the rock and the living water coming out.

It was supposed to be a picture of Christ for them to understand when He came. So the fact that he ties this in with Christ tells us it’s not just God’s provision, it’s God’s promise. This was a sign of their covenant with God.

It was a sign of God’s ultimate fulfillment of that covenant through Jesus Christ. And so just in the span of a few short weeks here, this group of people has experienced more miraculous events, more times that God showed up and showed off than most people experience in their entire lives, at least to this extent. They were walking with God in a closeness that we can only dream about as far as seeing right in front of us, how it shows up tangibly. They were experiencing God right there with them.

This was God’s grace. And we would think, okay, with this relationship, with this understanding of God, surely these people would be so close to Him that they could not fall because they know what they’ve seen. They know what they’ve heard.

They know what they’ve experienced. And yet verse 5 tells us that many of them still fell into pagan idolatry and suffered the consequences. They all experienced all the things that are spelled out in the first four verses, but verse 5 says, Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased.

God was upset with not just even a few of them. God was upset with the majority of them. And why is that?

It’s because even though all of them experienced this grace, the majority of them slipped and fell. The majority of them stumbled. The majority of them stumbled willingly.

And he outlines some ways happen. He gives us really three historical examples of spectacularly bad decisions that they made right after this that are all taken from the book of Numbers. But if we skip ahead to verse eight here, he said, let us not act immorally as some of them did.

And 23,000 fell in one day. That’s a story from Numbers chapter 25, where the people of Israel begin building relationships with the Moabites around them. And they decide, you know what?

y’all got some pretty cool gods over here. What if we offered sacrifices to them too? Could we come and worship the Moabite gods with you?

Oh yeah, sure, why not? So now they’re worshiping all these other gods in addition to the God of Israel. See, as far as I can tell, rarely did the Israelites in the Old Testament ever reject God.

They just usually added other gods to the mix. But God told them that’s not what was supposed to happen. So they worshiped the Moabite gods.

and a lot of times the worship of pagan gods involved things that we would be shocked and scandalized by. God was very upset and a plague was sent on the Israelite people until they repented and Paul says here that 23,000 fell in one day from this plague. In addition there were some others who were put to death by the leaders in order to stop this plague in order to show the repentance of Israel.

Now, Numbers tells us that 24,000 died. That’s not a biblical contradiction because Paul says 23,000 fell in one day. So it’s possible that the first of them fell the end of the day before.

It’s not something to, I got a little hung up on it when I noticed it this week, but it’s not as big a deal as it first appears. So they began to worship. These people who had seen God exhibit his power, thought they needed to go worship other gods.

Then verse 9 says, nor let us try the Lord. That also means test or tempt the Lord, as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents. In Numbers chapter 21, the people began to denounce the Lord.

I mean, they’re wandering around the wilderness. He’s taking care of them, and yet they’re complaining. They’re accusing God of cruelty.

You sent us here just to kill us here. They’re taking the good things that God had done for them, and they are accusing God of evil. I want you to understand this, that this is not just God being petty.

They are accusing a holy God of being evil. They are comparing him to the pagan gods that just on a whim did things to mess with people. And they, in fact, are putting themselves in a position to be over God to judge his morality.

And so God, as a judgment, sent fiery serpents among them in Numbers 21. And these serpents, and I have tried to research it and say, okay, are these some kind of supernatural things that they’re fire that look like snakes? Are they some kind of natural, and I don’t like snakes, so I’m careful about how to Google it because I don’t know what pictures are going to come up.

But are there snakes that have a fiery pattern? You know, what is it? And ultimately, it doesn’t matter because God said these things are going to be here and they were there and the people were bitten and they began to get sick and they began to die.

And we might say, well, isn’t that cruel of God to do? Except God sent the remedy. God sent the cure.

He told Moses, build a bronze serpent, put it up on a pole. And if the people will look on it, they’ll live. And those who believed God and looked on the serpent were healed.

And those who were stubborn and obstinate and refused to believe God and refused to obey God, refused to even look. And they met the natural consequence of being bitten by those serpents. Jesus himself said that this story was an example of what he came to do.

That he, like the serpent on the pole in the wilderness, that if he was raised up, he would draw all men to himself. The idea is that these fiery serpents were what injured the people, what afflicted the people. And when that cause of the affliction was raised up on the pole, those who would believe God and turn and look at it would be healed.

You and I were afflicted by sin. We are afflicted by sin. And when Jesus went to the cross, when he did what he said about being raised up from the earth, the Bible says he was made to become sin for us.

That means he took responsibility for our sins on himself. And he was raised up so that now if we will believe God and turn to him in faith, we’ll be healed from what afflicts us that’s been put on the cross. So they denounced the Lord and accused him of evil.

And he went through all of this to show them that for all their complaints about him, only he had the cure for what they really needed. And then in verse 10, it says, nor grumble, let us not grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. This is not just complaining.

This is from Numbers 16 and 17, where a man named Korah and those who were with him led a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Well, if God can speak through Moses and Aaron, why can’t he speak through us? When God had given no indication that he intended to speak through them.

So it wasn’t just a complaint. It wasn’t just a power struggle. When he says they were grumbling here, it means they were rejecting God’s God-given authority that he placed in their lives.

and deciding that they wanted to be the authority themselves. And the sons of Korah were swallowed up by the earth. God just, I don’t even know how this happened, other than God did it.

But the earth opened up, they fell in, and the earth closed back up. By the way, Paul says these are an example for us. None of these are an example that we want to follow.

None of these are consequences that we want to experience. And so he tells us we need to learn from the failures of our spiritual ancestors if we hope to avoid them. As a matter of fact, we can look all throughout Scripture and see stories of people who fell short, and those stories aren’t put there necessarily to shame them.

Those stories are put there to instruct us on some things not to do as we’re seeking to please and honor God. Some of the things that Paul points out here we’ve already looked at. Don’t act immorally, verse 8.

Don’t embrace things that are going to lead you to reject Him. If there’s something in your life today that the more you engage with it, the further it draws you away from Jesus Christ. Cut that out. And I don’t mean just cut it out in the sense of, hey, stop that.

I mean, excise that from your life. Surgically, cut it out, remove it, throw it away. If there’s something in your life that draws you away from Jesus Christ. Many years ago, I had to do that with the music I was listening to.

Because there were certain types of songs that if I would listen to, I knew they were pulling my heart away from Jesus. And they had to go. So whatever it is, if there’s something that’s leading you away from Him, Paul tells us to get rid of it.

Verse 9, he says, let us not try the Lord. Don’t test the Lord. In our circumstances, this means don’t assume you can act with impunity.

You know, the people of Israel, as they’re out there complaining about the Lord, and they’re out there accusing the Lord of evil, some of them are just running their mouths and thinking it doesn’t matter. Anybody else guilty of that? I’m not asking for a show of hands, but I’m guilty.

And I’m sure they thought, we’re just talking, nothing’s ever going to happen. Folks, the Bible warned us that there would come a day when mankind would think we could get away with anything because God’s judgment hadn’t fallen yet. And so because it hadn’t fallen yet, it must not ever be coming.

That’s why the Scriptures warned us that in the last days, it would be like the days of Noah. Nobody believed Noah. Nobody believed the message of judgment and the offer of salvation until it was on them.

And folks, you and I, if we don’t see consequences immediately, if we sin and sin and we don’t see the consequences immediately, we can delude ourselves into thinking that this is okay. God is okay with it. It’s not a problem.

I’ve gotten by with it. We never get by with it. The scriptures tell us that our sins will find us out.

There are consequences for every choice that we make that is in opposition to God. Some of them are natural consequences. There are things that are natural consequences.

We teach our kids this. You don’t study, you fail a test. That’s a natural consequence. Mom and dad didn’t have to do that.

When we disobey God, sometimes there are natural consequences. Other times there are the imposed consequences. Let’s say, if you do this, then I’m going to do this.

There may be natural consequences to our sin. There may be consequences that God imposes on us, but there’s always going to be a cost. I don’t tell you that to try to scare anybody. I tell you that because I know it to be true because I’ve experienced it in my own life.

And first and foremost, because God’s word says so. Consider it a friendly reminder. As much as it’s a reminder to me, as much as I’m going to need to remember these words later on, that there’s always a cost. And verse 10, he says, let us not grumble as some of them did.

And again, this is not just complaining. This is rebelling against God’s authority. Don’t reject his authority in your life.

I have met people. I can’t say that. I would not say that every non-believer is this way.

But I have met people who will tell me that they are atheist or agnostic, and we get down to their reasons, and it turns out it’s not so much that they have gone through arguments and evidence and they don’t believe in God based on those arguments and evidence, it’s that they reject the idea of God’s standard of right and wrong and don’t want that imposed on them. There’s a whole lot of people in Washington that I don’t like the things that they believe or impose, but they’re still in authority. I mean, they still exist. Folks, don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because we disagree with God that we’re no longer accountable to God.

That’s a dangerous place for us to be. So accept the God-given authority in your life. By the way, that doesn’t mean do everything I say.

The God-given authority is right here for a very simple reason that we believe this is God’s Word. We don’t worship a book, but we worship the God who inspired this book and gave it to us as his instructions for how we’re supposed to live. We have a God-given authority that we need to live by.

And so he tells us in verse 11, Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Now I want to leave you this morning with just a few thoughts from the last couple of verses about how we can avoid catastrophic moral and spiritual failure. This may not be all the things that Scripture lays out, but these are the things that I see in these verses.

That if we will practice these things, it will help us avoid the pitfalls that Paul’s talking about. It will help us walk wisely and help us walk in a way that we can continue to have a bold and credible gospel witness. So let’s look at verses 12 and 13 again briefly.

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. This is a warning that those who think, I’m all right. I’m good.

I’ve got it all figured out. Those people are in danger of falling. And so one thing we need to do is humbly acknowledge our ability to stumble.

We need to have some humility about ourselves where we recognize that we are not immune to being the people that Paul’s talking about. We don’t want to look at the Old Testament and say, they just really didn’t get it. Can you believe them?

No, we could very easily be in the same boat that they are in. We don’t want to look at the world outside and judge them and say, these people, because we could end up easily in the same in the same behaviors. Because we have this sinful human nature.

So Paul says, therefore, let him who thinks he stands, let the one who thinks he’s in control and he’s got it together, let him take heed so that he does not fall. We have to have some humility. Second of all, we have to avoid trying to justify sinful choices.

He says in verse 13 that there is no temptation that has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And yet we’ll come in and try to rationalize in situations why it’s okay. Now, my circumstances are just a little different.

We probably all do this in a variety of circumstances. I’ll do it with food. We just had Thanksgiving.

We’re probably all in this boat. Do I need a whole pie? I see somebody shaking their head yes no I may want a whole pie but do I need a whole pie that’s a different that’s a different question no I don’t need a whole pie I don’t need another piece of that but I’ll tell myself oh but it’s it’s been a busy day the kids have been stressful we’ve been on the road and I’ll begin to come up with these reasons why in this circumstance it’s all right we can do the same thing with sinful behaviors.

Things that God’s word tells us not to do. We can come up with all the reasons why in this scenario it’s all right. Or the things that God’s word tells us to do.

We can come up with all the reasons over here why, well my circumstances are different so I don’t have to do that. He tells us there’s no temptation that’s overtaken us. There’s no temptation we can experience that is not already common to man.

That other people have not already experienced. that God has not already foreseen and taken steps to address in His Word. It’s all right there.

And so you and I, not only do we need to be humble, but we also need to avoid the temptation to justify sinful behaviors. We need to recognize it when that thought process starts, and we need to put a stop to it realizing what we’re doing. Then verse 13 says, And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you’re able.

We have to depend on God to protect us. Now, this verse gets misused. God won’t give you more than you can handle.

Oh, I beg to differ. All right. When it comes to the circumstances of our lives, God sometimes allows us to have more stuff than we can handle.

Now, the good side of that is God never gives us anything that he can’t handle. But this is talking about temptation, the temptation to sin. God never lets us encounter a temptation that we are incapable of withstanding.

It’s just whether we’re willing to withstand it or not. Whether we’re willing to rely on Him, whether we’re willing to take the steps necessary. Sometimes withstanding temptation means run.

There are verses in the Bible that talk about resisting temptation. There are verses in the Bible that talk about fleeing temptation. I remember as a teenager being taught all the time how to resist temptation.

And then when I started seeing those verses that said flee temptation, I thought, where has this been? Because that seems like really good advice. You don’t have to be strong to flee temptation.

You just have to be fast. You just have to get out of there. We depend on Go