we are no different…1 Cor. 10:1-11 (NLT)

¹ I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago.

Paul was concerned that the Corinthian believers were unaware of their spiritual history. He wants to eradicate their ignorance, and replace it with historically accurate truth. The following historical facts he considers crucial to their present walk:

All of them

were guided by a cloud

that moved ahead of them,

and all of them

walked through the sea

on dry ground. ²

In the cloud

and in the sea,

all of them were baptized

as followers of Moses.

³ All of them ate the same spiritual food,

⁴ and all of them drank the same spiritual water.

For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them,

and that rock was Christ.

Paul considers it significant that they were “all” guided by the same cloud, walked through the same sea, and traveled the same ground. They were all “baptized” into the same group as followers of Moses, ate the same “spiritual food” and drank the same “spiritual water”. Their source for all of this was….drum roll please….Christ!

How shocking this would have been for a Jewish believer to comprehend. Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of the Church, was also the source of life for Israel thousands of years prior to His birth! They had the same Jesus we do. They were eerily similar to a “church”. They had a community with shared experiences and teaching – and where did it get them?

⁵ Yet God was not pleased with most of them,

and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

Ouch! Could Paul possibly have been more harsh? They (the Jewish slave escapees from Egypt) were quite similar to us (believers in Corinth/Kirkwood). And the punch line is --- they were NOT acceptable to God. Somehow, they disqualified themselves.

⁶ These things happened as a warning to us,

so that we would not crave evil things as they did, ⁷

or worship idols as some of them did.

Yikes, their deaths became our object lesson. Their God is my God. Their disobedience my disobedience. Why am I not more afraid that their fate could become mine?

As the Scriptures say,

“The people celebrated

with feasting and drinking,

and they indulged in pagan revelry.”

Shouldn’t I be trembling? My carnal cravings also lead to death. Here are take-home lessons Paul shouts out:

⁸ And we must not engage in sexual immorality

as some of them did,

causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.

Purity – a theme we have seen before in 1 Corithains. Absolutely essential for a child of God. God does not accept our immorality or our excuses. Are you failing morally? Get help! Are you struggling with a sexual addiction or fantasy? Seek counsel. The battle is not won alone. Losing this battle is not an option.

⁹ Nor should we put Christ to the test,

as some of them did

and then died from snakebites.

Testing God – a sin of unbelief. How big is my faith? Some of Israel’s faith was small enough to deserve venomous snakebites. Perhaps I should focus on growing my faith and increasing my dependence on God.

¹⁰ And don’t grumble as some of them did,

and then were destroyed by the angel of death.

Complaining – another theme of 1 Corinthians that seeps from many pages. Learn to be content! Stop being negative and muttering about how poor your life is. Do you think the angel of death is dead? I don’t think Paul believed that!

¹¹ These things happened to them as examples for us.

They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.

You mean we are not all that different? That is exactly Paul’s point.