Greg Robinson - God Hath Made Foolish the Wisdom of this World - Class 6 - The Power of the Cross

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   And the power of the cross for the Greg has asked that we take a reading from first of Corinthians chapter 13. So First Corinthians chapter 13. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass and or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing.

2. 0:40

   And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long and is kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, and geareth all things.

3. 1:26

   Love never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophecy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I speak as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.

4. 2:13

   And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three. But the greatest of these is love. This is Watch and Lake Bible School 2022. Brother Greg Robinson is speaking on the theme God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world in First Corinthians. This is his sixth and last class entitled The Power of the Cross for the Greg, please. Thanks, brother Josh.

5. 2:53

   Good morning, my dear brothers and sisters. OK, it’s pretty good, I guess. All right, so today is to do day. So what I’d like everybody to do is to get out a nice clean sheet of paper.

6. 3:07

   And what we’re going to try to do today is we’re going to try to have some takeaways, some to do’s that we’re going to work on after we go home from Bible school. Well, actually you could start before then, but the idea is to take home. These are the things we’re going to get to work on in our lives. So only a couple, maybe maybe even just one of these that we’re going to go over today is great. Nice clean sheet of paper, right to do from watching Lake Bible School at the top.

7. 3:39

   I would tell you to put the year on it, but no, let’s not put the year on it because let’s make sure we get it done this year, right, OK. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to go through some of the excertational sections, which are quite instructive as well, But we’re going to go through some of the sections in First Corinthians that I think give us some really good advice on how we can put to use what we’ve learned this week in our studies.

8. 4:09

   So we’ve been looking then at the Corinthian ecclesia, and from the start we saw that the Corinthian ecclesia was one that was really in trouble, the ways of the world. We’re coming into the ecclesia and there really wasn’t much opposition from the ecclesia. And God gives us in Corinthians a detailed picture of the problems that they faced, and he also shows us the causes of those problems.

9. 4:36

   And I think that we find that information very helpful for us if we start to use it to look at our own lives. If we look at the challenges that we have today and we look at how they were instructed to solve the problems that they had, I think there’s a really good connection for us as well.

10. 4:54

    So I’m going to start out and I’m going to name what what I think are some of the big issues that face us as Christadelphians in 2022. And the first one that I think that we face is really just about the same as what the brothers and sisters in Corinth faced. And that was fornication and the world’s morality.

11. 5:14

    It’s a, it’s a struggle that all of our ecclesias, I think, face. The media, which is so prevalent, so readily available to us, makes it really difficult for us to stay away from these things. Not so much the participation in them, but just the exposure to them. They, they are problems then that come from this, that touch our families, our ecclesias, and, and for many of us, they’re problems that we face. So that’s the first thing.

12. 5:43

    And we’re going to look at how we can, how we can work on this, this and the other problems that we, that we face. The second one that’s really starting to be a bigger and bigger problem is the alternative lifestyles and the alternative families that the world’s wisdom is presenting to us. That’s being forced into the world’s education systems, that’s being normalized and even glorified by the media. So that’s another big concern that we face today. The third thing is the false doctrines that are being brought into our ecclesia, the changing understanding of of creation and the move towards evolution that that we’re facing in the brotherhood.

13. 6:31

    The eroding of concrete principles like God, manifestation and the cross of Christ that we’ve been looking at really in detail this week. And some of the people that are bringing these things, things into the ecclesia are looking to damage what we believe in. There are websites, there are places that that discredit what we believe in.

14. 6:54

    And some in the ecclesia are actually thinking that by allowing these things or promoting these things even, that they’re making the ecclesia better. They’re actually, as we saw this week, they’re following man’s wisdom, trying to help the ecclesia. So that’s a problem that we face as well.

15. 7:14

    The fourth thing, and I think it’s a particular relevance to our studies this week, is many no longer consider the words of Paul to be the inspired word of God. They think that Paul’s letters are just Paul’s opinions, saying that Paul’s words really don’t apply to our time because our time is different. We saw in Corinth that they rejected head coverings in the ecclesia because they didn’t understand what was behind the symbol of head coverings.

16. 7:45

    They didn’t recognize the submission of the ecclesia to Christ as a symbol. And so they didn’t think it was important for them to to follow through and to to have that practice in their ecclesia. They started down the road then by discrediting Paul of, of the churches that are around us, promoting the role of women beyond what Paul tells us, and even going beyond that to having teachers that participate in alternative lifestyles and even promoting those alternative lifestyles. So there’s a real danger then that we take the words of Paul and we discount them or dismiss them as not relevant to our time.

17. 8:26

    Definitely a problem that we face. And then #5 is one that we faced for a long time. There’s it’s one that really hampers us from dealing with the 1st 4 and that’s the divisions that are constantly bogging us down in in our ecclesial work. Contentions are building and sometimes the results of these contentions are are catastrophic for our young people as we put precious time and resources into solving these divisions and we neglect some of the more important things of educating our our young people and our brothers and sisters. So I thought it was really, really helpful with what Paul presents, the connection that he makes between the divisions that they had and solving that by bringing into the ecclesia a greater respect for the word of God and a greater effort in understanding the wisdom of God.

18. 9:27

    So the wisdom of God then is critical to the ecclesia, and Paul’s showed us that that’s what we need to turn to in order to solve these problems if we’re going to strengthen our ecclesias. Now, my sister wife, Michelle always tells me when I talk about problems that the ecclesia has problems that we face. She always tells me that what we need to do is we need to teach those problems out of our ecclesias and teach those problems out of our families and teach those problems out of our lives.

19. 10:00

    And I think that’s exactly right. She always tells me that, and it’s always the answer. It’s always the answer that I end up getting to. We’ve got to educate ourselves in the wisdom of God if we’re going to deal with these problems. If we work to follow the example of Christ and the example of the cross, if we combine our efforts in our eccleses and between our eccleses and we work together, we can make a difference, just as Paul expected the brothers and sisters in Corinth to make a difference in their ecclesia, even though their ecclesia was facing such difficult times. Now I often think about the times of Jezebel and Ahab. It was a terribly wicked world at that time. It was full of of the immorality that that we face today. It was full of idolatry.

20. 10:51

    But when the prophets got together and worked together, they work together to educate the people through the school schools of the prophets. And the people were converted, weren’t they, by the still small voice that Elisha brought to the people and used to to convert them and to help them to overcome the environment that they lived in?

21. 11:15

    That’s what we’ve got to do today, brothers and sisters, because our world is like that world. Our world is like the world of the Corinthians. And God’s wisdom is greater than than all of that.

22. 11:28

    So we had this picture of the ecclesia, didn’t we? We have a vision here of what it looked like when Paul was writing to them. We have these leaders which were divided. There were factions. We have the contentions and the divisions that that came from that. And what we have seen, I think, this week is that if we can get rid of those factions, if we can work past those factions, if we can get rid of the divisions and the contentions, if we can build strongly the ecclesia as Christ designed it to be, then we can overcome those problems in the ecclesia. And that’s what our focus is going to be on this morning, just looking at some of these problems and looking at some of the answers that Paul gives us in order to do that. So First Corinthians chapter 13 is where we’re going to start, just as our reading was this morning. And in First Corinthians 13,

23. 12:29

    Paul describes for us a special kind of love, a love that comes when the focus of our minds is on the purpose of God. We call it agape love, and we often define agape love as self sacrificing love. It’s a love that comes from sacrificing our will for our God and our will for our brothers and sisters. Of course, there’s another kind of love called filial love, which is brotherly love.

24. 13:02

    But agape love is is much more than filial love. It’s a much stronger love, isn’t it? And the agape love that Paul’s talking about comes only to those who have chosen to live their lives in the service of God. So in the first 3 verses of First Corinthians chapter 13, Paul tells us that we have to have agape love to be of use to God.

25. 13:29

    We have to have it. Now I found a quote from a brother, John Allfrey, that I think is really useful in looking what agape love is. Because agape love isn’t just self sacrificing love, it’s self sacrificing love that’s built on something. It has a strong foundation. It has a basis, he says about agape love.

26. 13:51

    He says this kind of love is based upon a knowledge of God’s will and God’s purpose. It is demonstrated by action. It manifests itself by sacrifice of self. You see the the the extension that he gives it here, it comes from understanding what God is doing and being too willing and being willing to sacrifice ourself in order to further God’s purpose. So not just anybody can have the agape love that Paul’s talking about here.

27. 14:26

    If we’re not familiar with God’s plan and purpose, then we won’t be able to have this agape love. It’s demonstrated by action. It’s something that actually has power in our lives to change the way that we act, the way that we behave. So right away, I think we make this connection with with Christ and the love that Christ showed us to fulfill God’s purpose by sacrificing himself. That was agape love in it, in it’s perfect form. Christ was willing to give his life for God’s purpose. All right, so we’re going to start to go through the different aspects of this love.

28. 15:03

    And what we’re going to try to do is we’re going to try to connect each of these aspects of love to why it’s important for us to understand the purpose of God and to see how understanding the purpose of God actually makes it more likely or more possible, more likely to, for us to be able to, to do these things. Because the list, as you’ll know, is a difficult list. There’s things on there that that really are hard for us to bring ourselves to do.

29. 15:31

    So this is where your, your To Do List, I think starts to come into play. So as we go through each of these, just know that we’re looking at behind them, the importance of, of fulfilling God’s purpose as we go through them. And I want you to to kind of assess yourself on these and see how you’re doing.

30. 15:50

    And at the end, maybe you’ve come up with one or two of these and we’re going to go to a few other other chapters in Corinthians as well. But you’ll come up with a few that maybe you can work on. And hopefully seeing the connection with the purpose of God will make that even easier for you to do. OK, so the first one is in verse 4, Paul says, if you have this kind of love that you will be able to suffer long. So how does the How does knowing the purpose of God help us to be long-suffering?

31. 16:21

    Think about that for just a second. How does that help us? If we know God’s purpose, how does that help us to be long-suffering? Well, if we know what God’s doing, and if we can see it working out step by step, what can we see? We can see progress, right? We can see a movement towards God’s purpose. Think about David waiting years and years and years to become king, suffering over and over and over again at the hand of his brother Saul.

32. 16:52

    But he could see where this was going. He could see where it was taking him. And that helped him to be able to overcome. All right, so for you, is that one that you would add to your list? That’s up to you. What about being kind? Love agape Love helps us to be kind or considerate to each other.

33. 17:14

    How does knowing the purpose of God help us to be considerate to each other? Well, if we’re thinking about God’s purpose, God’s purpose is to save people, isn’t it? Isn’t that exactly what being kind to people is is all about? We’re going to fill the earth with people that glorify God. We’re going to try to help each other to be a part of that Kingdom. We’re trying to help each other.

34. 17:40

    And I think about the feeding of the 5000 and the apostles, the, the disciples, they were exhausted and they felt like, oh, do we really have to, to, to, to feed all of these people? Do we really have to spend all of our energy teaching these people Is, is the type? And they said, you know what, to us, we think we should just send the people away.

35. 18:01

    But what about Christ? Christ had compassion on them, didn’t he? Christ says you’ve got the words of salvation. There’s no way we could send these people away. Let’s let’s show that compassion. Let’s be kind to these people. The purpose is is important in that, isn’t it? It helps us a lot to to be kind to each other.

36. 18:20

    Do we need to add that to our list? He says envy. If not now that one doesn’t need any explanation at all. So how does knowing the purpose of God help us not to envy? Well, if our goal is the success of the ecclesia, then we won’t be envious of those people that help our ecclesia to have success.

37. 18:48

    We’ll be Jonathan who was excited about the success of David and not Saul who was not excited. Not Saul, who was furious about the success of Jonathan. Even when we know and believe the purpose of God, the success of our brothers and sisters is our success. We’ll say, hey, they just scored a goal for the team and we’ll be happy about that. Do we need to add that to our list? Love wanteth not itself.

38. 19:30

    So love doesn’t brag. How does that fit into knowing the purpose of God? How can we be helped? Again, We’ll we’ll use the example of Saul. Saul bragged about what he had done all the time because his goal was glorifying Saul. Wasn’t it our glory? What we found this week, what Paul has been trying to show us, is that our glory comes through the glory of God, and that the glory that comes from the glory of God is far greater than any glory that we could bring to ourselves.

39. 20:03

    So again, the purpose of God plays an important role in that. He says this kind of love is not puffed up, it’s not proud, but we know we’re planting, we know we’re watering, and we know that the big job, the big part of what’s happening is actually God who’s giving the increase. So everything that we have is from God. And the real success is God’s, isn’t it? And we’re happy to be a part of that if we recognize that we are a part of the plan and purpose of God, that we’re working a part of that.

40. 20:44

    So do we need to add that to our list? Maybe we do. He says does not behave itself unseemly. It doesn’t act in a way that discredits God’s work. How does being how does being part of the purpose of God help us not to act in an unseemly way? We’ll think about David.

41. 21:09

    David maybe failed in this on an occasion he said that he gave others the opportunity to blasphemy God. So he’s acting in an unseemly way actually hurt God’s plan and purpose. Now for us, how do we act when we’re at work? What do people see with the way that we behave at work? Do they know that we’re Christadelphians? And in knowing that we’re Christadelphians, if they do, do they, do they think, wow, I want to know more about those people because they’re different.

42. 21:39

    And when they say they’re different, they mean it in a good way. Do we need to add that to our list? He says seeketh not her own, so it doesn’t insist on its own way. How does being a part of the purpose of God help us not to always demand our own way? Well, we work well with others and we acknowledge their perspectives.

43. 22:07

    We’re willing to plant the seed closer to the hose, right? And actually, then you end up with something that’s produced by it. We’re willing to go along with what others say. God does this all the time, doesn’t he? With us, He uses our ideas to help further His purpose. So we need to make sure that we don’t seek our own. He says it’s not easily provoked. That means doesn’t get offended easily. So how does being a part of the purpose of God help us not to be easily offended?

44. 22:45

    But the purpose of God is so important that we don’t sweat things that don’t matter. We don’t sweat things that are just a bother to us. We’re willing to look the other way. Maybe we realize that we we do exactly the same things and we do things that actually bother others or might provoke others. But when we look at our our role in in doing the work of God, we can easily see how those can get in the way. And we work to make sure that they don’t get in the way. Thinketh no evil, he says, doesn’t keep track of another’s wrongs, is what he’s talking about here. So how does being a part of the purpose of God help us not to do that?

45. 23:28

    Well, keeping track of other people’s wrongs is absolutely not productive. We’ve committed a lot of wrongs ourselves, but the goal is the focus. We learn we can’t tell another person’s motives. We learn to think the best of them. And then God’s purpose is is is much more successful in our lives and in our relationships with our brothers and sisters.

46. 23:55

    Do we need to add that one to our list number six or verse six? He says rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in truth. Do we find pleasure in sin? How does being a part of the purpose of God help us not to find pleasure in sin? Well, if if we’re working to the purpose of God or for the purpose of God, we realize that sin gets in the way of God’s purpose and we don’t want to mess things up for God’s purpose. We don’t want to mess things up for our family or for our collision.

47. 24:33

    And we realized that real satisfaction comes from the truth. Do we need to add that one to our list? He says Beareth all things puts up with things that are that are not counter to the plan of God. So again, we use the the example of David, David and Saul. So Saul was always attacking David.

48. 24:56

    What did David want to do for Saul? He wanted to. David wanted to save Saul, even though Saul was always attacking him. The mission was the focus in David’s mind. The mission was not the focus in Saul’s mind. Imagine if we could be like David and say I want to save my brother, believeth all things. He trusts others, this person, with this, this kind of love. So how does being a part of the plan and purpose of God help us to trust each other?

49. 25:29

    But we trust that they’re focused on the mission, too. We give them the benefit of the doubt when they correct us. We accept it even though it’s hard and we try to learn from it. But we put our trust in each other to do our best and to do the plan and purpose of God

50. 25:51

    hopeth all things. So has an expectation is what that word hope means, Isn’t it an expectation in what God has promised? So how does being part of the plan and purpose of God help us to have that expectation?

51. 26:08

    Well, we expect the Kingdom, don’t we? This one is impossible to have without knowing the purpose of God. It’s the same thing. We have a vision like Christ did, endures all things. So they persevere. They persevere because they expect the plan and purpose of God to come to pass.

52. 26:34

    It’s quite a list, isn’t it? Maybe there were a couple there that you you thought maybe I need to work more diligently on some of these items. Maybe these are things that that would help us. But you see, as we go through the list, we also see what happens to the ecclesia as these things are practiced by the brothers and sisters in a group or in an ecclesia. And we can all get better on these. And if we do, then many of the, the divisions and the contentions and the factions in the ecclesia will disappear and will begin to be much more effective in fighting the the problems that we face.

53. 27:08

    And so Paul has just given us this wonderful list that we can actually use to measure how the Word of God, how the thinking of the Spirit is actually working in our lives.

54. 27:21

    Let’s go over to 1st Corinthians chapter 6. And here Paul deals with another problem in the ecclesia, and he has an absolutely wonderful answer for this problem.

55. 27:34

    In Corinth, when a brother or sister had a dispute with another brother or sister and they weren’t able to solve the problem, they’d sue each other and then the judges of the city of Corinth would make the decision. So Paul says in verse one, dare any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the Saints. So Paul says that it’s crazy what you’re doing. He says, why can’t you just solve the problems amongst yourself?

56. 28:08

    You’re actually going to court against your brother or your sister. Verse three, he says, know you not that we shall judge angels that might throw us off there. That word angels, it just means messengers. He talks about these messengers. He’s talking about in the Kingdom, the fact that we will judge the mortal rulers of the earth. He says, how much more than if you’re, if in the Kingdom we’re going to be able to judge these rulers, how much more ought we be able to do and, and to judge the things that pertain to this life?

57. 28:43

    And he’s simply saying we should be able to solve our own problems if we’re actually working towards this other objective. And then he says in verse 4, if then you have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the ecclesia. Now, that’s a bit difficult for us to understand the way that the King James puts that, it sounds like it’s saying that, look, if you if you have problems that pertain to this life, we’ll take the least capable in your ecclesia to solve the problem, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what it sounds like it’s saying? But that’s not what he’s saying here. And here’s a, a more helpful translation in the, in the New International version, it says, therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned by the ecclesia? So he’s saying, do you go to people that are not in the ecclesia whose way of life is scorned, which we’ve been talking about all week long, haven’t we, about the ways of man?

58. 29:40

    Do you go to somebody who’s whose judgment is going to be based on the wisdom of man? And do you accept their judgment on ecclesial disputes? Skip down to verse 7. Here’s what he says. He says now, therefore there is utterly a fault among you. How would you like somebody to say that about you, right? They have Paul say that about you. There is utterly a fault.

59. 30:06

    This is this is craziness. What’s happening here because you go to law with one another. Paul says, actually, you’ve got it backwards. Not only is it wrong to ask someone who doesn’t know the wisdom of God to make the decision, but really you should just take the wrong. You should just take the wrong. Why don’t you rather take the wrong? He says.

60. 30:32

    Why don’t you rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Now, if the plan and purpose of God is foremost in our minds, that’s a lot easier for us to do right. This this life is not important. How much money we have now is not important. We should be able to to move past that. Don’t worry if your brother wrongs you suffer yourself to be defrauded.

61. 30:57

    If your brother borrows money from you and he won’t pay it back, what should you do? Suffer yourself to be defrauded, right? A brother told me once that you should never lend money to your brothers or sisters that have have a need. Just give them the money and tell them I don’t expect this money back.

62. 31:14

    So if, if you don’t give it back to me, that’s fine too. It’s great advice. I think it helps. It helps that that situation when that come up, comes up and and someone might not pay back their brother. It’s helpful then if we see the big picture, because seeing the big picture helps this to become obvious to us.

63. 31:34

    We should suffer ourselves to be defrauded. That’s what it’s all about. It’s the cross of Christ. And how could we not go through and follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ? OK, do you need to add that one to your list? Maybe we all need to add that one to our list a little bit, right?

64. 31:51

    Suffer ourselves to be defrauded. You see now how the ecclesia of Corinth is, is now making disappear the problems that they have of these factions, these contentions, if they’re actually putting God’s plan and purpose into their minds, understanding it, and then following what it can do to our thinking as Paul directs us in these verses.

65. 32:15

    Let’s go to 1st Corinthians 5 S 1st Corinthians 5 is about removing sin from the ecclesia. We’ve talked about it a couple of different times already, and a growing tendency in the ecclesial world today is to allow sinful behavior to continue in the ecclesia rather than removing it. I think we’ve probably all seen that that is is a tendency that that’s something we have to work against.

66. 32:42

    But Paul’s very clear. Paul says we should in verse 5, deliver such an one suit to Satan. So they’ve got to be removed. He says, for the destruction of the flesh to help them to stop walking after the flesh. That’s the purpose of all of this, that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus so that they’ll be saved when Christ returns. Big picture, isn’t it?

67. 33:10

    That’s what we’re trying to do. That’s the the goal that we have is to try to help them. And removing sin is part of that exact process. So verse six, he says your glory Ings are not good. But we’ve already seen that, haven’t we? The glory Ings and the fact that they all wanted to be leaders and they wanted to have their own their own factions in the ecclesia made it so that some would accept practices that they shouldn’t have.

68. 33:34

    And they couldn’t come to a consensus or to an agreement on that because they really were more concerned about their their factions prominence than about the work of God. So what does he say in verse seven? He says purge out there for the old leaven that you may be a new lump as ye are unleavened. So he’s telling them simply, sin has to be removed. Sin has to be removed from the ecclesia. Sin has to be removed from our lives. We need to be fighting the battle against sin. And he talks here about Christ, our Passover. He says for even Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us. So if Christ was sacrificed to defeat sin, why would we keep sin in our lives is what he’s trying to tell us. So the whole purpose of Christ was, was to eliminate sin. So why would we then keep it in our lives? And he compares it to the Passover. We’ve all in the Passover.

69. 34:44

    We have the example of those that were committing to participate in the battle against sin. They, they painted the blood on their doorpost to say that I am a part of this group. I have joined this battle against sin. So how could those people that have then put this blood on their doorpost, how could they then leave sin in their lives? Are we allowing sin then to remain in our lives is the question that Paul asks us?

70. 35:15

    Are we allowing that to continue or we fighting against it? Come over to 1st Corinthians chapter 10. So in First Corinthians, Paul spends a lot of time dealing with idolatry. It was a tough problem for the brothers and sisters because their whole previous life was based around idolatry. Their whole social life was centered around the idols temples.

71. 35:53

    The temples had eating facilities in them. They had theaters for entertainment. They had idols on display inside of these temples. There was feasting, there was drinking and and there was immorality. And so it was really difficult for a new believer to separate themselves from everything linked to idolatry. If you conducted business that was often conducted at the temples, you’d have meals with with business people that you were doing business with at the temples. Coworkers after work would get together at the temples. Social events were held at the temples, family events were held at the temples.

72. 36:42

    And so some in the ecclesia thought that it was OK to go to these temples still because they thought these these gods are nothing. Why does it even matter if we go? We know that these gods are nothing. But others in the ecclesia thought that it was really dangerous, that this could be a real problem for the brothers and sisters.

73. 37:05

    So in chapter 10, what Paul does is he uses the example of Israel to help them to come to a conclusion about this question, to help them to see the danger of getting too close to the ways of the world or to sin. So in chapter 5, he’s shown us that we’ve got to to remove sin. And now he says that don’t even stop, don’t stop just with removing sin, but you’ve also got to to work very carefully to not even get close to sin.

74. 37:38

    First Corinthians chapter 10 verse 1. He says, 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 and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They were baptized the brothers and sisters of Corinth. He’s saying, sorry, the Israelites were baptized into Moses and Paul was saying to the Corinthians, just like you have been baptized into Christ.

75. 38:13

    They were saved by the blood of the Passover lamb as you’ve been saved by the blood of Christ. They were an ecclesia in the wilderness, just as you are in ecclesia today. They began a new way of life and they left their old way of life, the way of sin, behind in Egypt. That should sound familiar, I think, to us too, right? So not only is he talking here to the Corinthians, but he’s talking to us as well.

76. 38:40

    So God says, Paul says God provided all of them with spiritual food. So they had God’s wisdom presented to them. It was provided for them just as he’s done for you. He says to them. Verse three, He says, and they did all eat the same spiritual meat. Note the all there, all of Israel were provided with that manna, with that typical spiritual food. They were all in a position to accept God’s teaching because all of them had it every day, He says in verse four. And they did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.

77. 39:30

    So the rock that was struck was, was Christ. And they could deduce from that what the sacrifice of Christ did for them in providing this living fountain of water that provided for them life, eternal life. But many of them failed, didn’t they? Verse 5 But with many of them, not with several, not a few, but many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness, and so they didn’t enter into the promised land in spite. His point is of belonging to the ecclesia, and having all those spiritual benefits that they had. And he says, OK, all these things were written for examples to us.

78. 40:24

    To the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted that our desire should not be for those things of the world. He’s speaking here to the group that had gone with Moses, but that weren’t satisfied with the spiritual food that was provided Instead. What did they want? They wanted the food of Egypt, they wanted what Egypt had to offer.

79. 40:53

    They wanted what the world had to offer. And it’s easy for us to fall into the same thing to, to, to spend our time on what the world has to offer instead of on the word of God, which is, is true food for us. So the food then represents the things that we put into our minds. And it was difficult for Israel to leave behind that sensuous way of life for us, that sensuous entertainment of our past lives or of the world itself. It was difficult for the Corinthian brothers and sisters to leave it behind.

80. 41:31

    And many in Israel, he’s telling us we’re not strong enough to get close to that sensuous way of life. And Paul was telling the Corinthians that many of them were not strong enough to get to that way of life.

81. 41:47

    They were associating themselves with with those that were not interested in the world and in the ways of the world. And soon what happened to them was that they weren’t interested in the things of God either. And verse seven, he says, neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and to drink and they rose up to play, right. It wasn’t about the idols here, it was about the lifestyle that they were thinking back to and going back to the lifestyle of immorality.

82. 42:29

    And many in Israel were not strong enough to withstand that life’s lifestyle. Many in the ecclesia. And so he says in verse 8, neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed and fell in one day. Three and 20,000 And he references the whoredom with the daughters of Moab at the suggestion of Balaam.

83. 42:55

    They accepted another religion, they accepted another God so that they could satisfy their lusts and their desires. Many in the ecclesia, in the wilderness, we’re not strong enough to get that close. Verse 90 says neither. Let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted and were destroyed of serpents when the people of Israel spake against God and against Moses, right? Why’d you bring us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? And so God sent fiery serpents among them because they had loathed the manna.

84. 43:37

    They’d gotten to the place because they were so close to the world that they no longer had an appreciation for the Word of God and for the things of God. They no longer had an appreciation for the plan and purpose of God. Many in Israel just weren’t strong enough to associate with those who live this way of life because they were looking for something more pleasing and more stimulating. Verse 10, he says neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. He’s talking about the murmuring of the spies. He says many in Israel were not strong enough when the spies brought back a faithless report and also when Cora led the rebellion.

85. 44:28

    And so Paul says in verse 11, now all these things happened for in samples, and they’re written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. Paul was telling the Corinthians that they needed to be careful that they didn’t find themselves in the same place that Israel found themselves. They were part of an ecclesia.

86. 44:55

    They had all the benefits of the teachings of God, but they got way too close to the ways of the world, and many of them found themselves giving into the ways of the world. They thought they could handle it, but they couldn’t handle it,

87. 45:13

    Paul then says. To those that thought that they were strong enough, that they were strong enough to takes the world’s ways into their lives without being swallowed up, he says, do you really think that you’re strong enough to do that? Be careful. Wherefore let him that thicketh he standeth. Take heed lest he fall, because we’re just like them, he says. And we have the same temptations, the same desires, the same lusts, the same vulnerabilities. And Paul was, get it, trying to get them to see how dangerous it would be for them to get so close to the Pagan practices of the world around them.

88. 46:00

    We need to see the same thing. We need to be afraid of the same thing happening to us because the world’s practices now can come right into our homes. We need to be careful that we stay away from that because it could easily, easily drag us in.

89. 46:21

    OK, that was a longer one. Do you need to add that one to your list? That was the last one that we’re going to look at. So we’ve all got maybe a few things written down on the paper there in front of us. Our To Do List of things to help us should be plenty to choose from from that list. I’ll say this week that we really enjoyed being able to spend time together with you going through a study of Corinthians.

90. 46:52

    I really enjoyed looking more deeply into Corinthians. Hopefully for you, you have some notes in your your margin that will help you to understand the things that Paul is saying there. I’ll say it’s been also really encouraging for us to be here with you, our family, to be here with you this week. It’s been it’s been really good spiritually for us. We’d like to end with just one more quotation. And this was taken from First Corinthians chapter 15. And this is some advice that Paul gives to his brothers and sisters in Corinth after showing the Corinthians the sureness of the resurrection of Christ.

91. 47:38

    So first Corinthians 1557, he says, Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my brethren, sorry. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

92. 48:17

    Thank you, Brother Greg, for your class today and for the classes throughout this week.