If you would, open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10, this morning our text will be the first five verses of this chapter. Once again, hear God's Word. For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drink the same spiritual drink for they drink from the spiritual rock that followed them. The rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Let us pray. Father, we come today to your word. We ask that you would meet us here. We ask that you would change us, that you would chisel away at our hard hearts, that you would soften our hearts to the gospel and that you would teach us how to respond in faith. We ask that you would change us and mold us, that you would rebuke us where we need that and that you today would encourage us where we need to be encouraged. And Father, we do ask that we would be different because we have come in contact with You through Your Word today. And Father, we ask that You would be honored and glorified as we hear from You today. We pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen. We start a new chapter in 1 Corinthians today. Although we start a new chapter, we're still in the midst of Paul's arguments about idolatry. This is a fairly long discourse that comes from a result of the Corinthians asking a question about food offered to idols. And Paul starts to answer that question way back in chapter 8. If you remember, he says, now concerning food offered to idols. And then in the rest of the chapter, he focused not on necessarily the food situation that they asked about, but the underlying issues that they were having. Paul points out that their supposed freedom that they have in Christ was being used to destroy the faith of other Christians. That isn't just wrong, but it is a sin against Christ himself. Paul then goes on and explains his right as an apostle in chapter 9 and how he puts puts these freedoms aside as he attempts to minister to this church in Corinth. And then at the end of the chapter, he explains how he denies himself in a way that is similar to the way athletes deny themselves as they train for competition. And he says he does this because the reward of Christ is far greater than any perishing wreath or crown that one can earn on this world. Now, What Paul's going to do starting from here going forward is he's going to turn his focus from the effects of actions that you do on others and from himself and how he acts and turn now to the Corinthian church and how they are to act. And in chapter 10, he's going to finish up this discourse and he's going to provide warnings to the church specifically on sin and the worship of idols. And he starts this warning with a cautionary tale of sorts. And he does this and before he explains this tale or this story of the fathers and the faith before he gets into the meat or so that I say the straightforward teaching of the warnings. This is not an unfamiliar way to go about teaching people. In fact, many of you have probably taught your children using stories. And many of you children remember being taught stories to teach truths or to teach principles in the world. An example of this is a story. It's an old story of a boy who cried wolf. The very famous fable, a very famous example of a story that people use as cautionary tales to teach and to help people learn truths and principles in life. And many of you remember this story from your childhood, and many of you probably have heard it referenced probably more recently in your life. Let me summarize the story for you. There was a shepherd boy who was watching his flock outside of a village, and he started to cry out, wolf, wolf! And all of the village people heard him crying out, and they gathered together quickly. They came to his aid to fight off the wolf, only to find there was no wolf there attacking his sheep or the boy. And the boy found this very, very funny. Got a great kick out of it. The people go back to the town. This happens three or four more times. He'll cry out, wolf, wolf, and the people would run to his aid, only to find that there is no wolf there. One day, it's the boys watching his sheep. A wolf, a real wolf, comes. And if you know anything about stories and fables, wolves are never the good guys. They're always the bad guys. The wolf shows up and the wolf has one thing in mind, to kill and eat and destroy. And this boy recognizes this is a very bad place for him. He has not the ability to fight this wolf off and so he cries for help. Wolf! Wolf! And the people in the town hear him crying and screaming and they think, silly boy is tricking us again. And they don't go to his aid. And this wolf now has the ability to do exactly what he came to do, to kill and destroy. And we tell this story to children and it likely was told to you as a child. And we do it to teach people that they are to be honest in their dealings and to not trick people, because one day you're going to cry out for help and no one is going to come because you have lied and tricked them in the past. And it's likely that maybe even in this election cycle, you've heard people say, yeah, we've heard them cry wolf before and nothing happened. Or you're at work and something happens and you've heard a co-worker say, yeah, well, they're just crying wolf. And we all know what it means, that they're crying out for something that's not true. And we tell these stories as cautionary tales. This is the way the Lord has created humans, that we learn through stories many times. We see it in Scripture often. We see these grand narratives of things that are happening that are set up for our example and to teach us. And Paul is doing that today. He's going to recall back to the mines and teach of this story of Israel, the story of of God's people that have been saved, have tasted of his goodness. And Paul is going to use it as a cautionary tale and use it as an example for the Corinthian church of what they are not to be doing. So it serves as a warning for the Corinthian church and also for us. Before we dive into the entirety of the text today, I want us to first see the connection with the previous text. In many of your Bibles, and this is why I always tell young people, this is why you learn language. This is why you spend time in school learning how English works and other languages work, so you can read things critically and know what's going on. And in many of your translations in English, it starts with, for I want you to know, or now I want you to know. Paul is making a connection to what he has previously said. And he has said in the same manner, as an athlete disciplines his body, I discipline my body so I will not be disqualified. I will not run awry of the gospel. I will not fall off into sin and do something that disqualifies me. And Paul is saying, now I want you to know, brothers, that all of our fathers passed under the cloud. And building on this idea of not being disqualified, Paul is going to tell the story of Israel. So I want to reread the first four verses as we start looking at this. And I want you to pay attention to the events that Paul references. Paul says, for brothers, I want you to know. 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 ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ's." So Paul has just said, I don't want to be disqualified. And then he says, for I want you to know that Israel, saw all of these great works, and then we're going to see that God was not pleased with him. So he starts his application to the church and he looks to the past. That may not be how you and I would have done it. You might have said. Just written down. You people are doing everything wrong in Corinth. Do it like this. A, B, C, D. I know some of you would have done that because some of you think like engineers. And I think that way often, too. We would have just lined it out and expect it to be done. But Paul doesn't do that. He turns back to history and say, let me show you an example where we can look back to in God's Word of how this disqualification and this displeasure in God's eyes actually happens. He says, I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were under this cloud. These fathers that Paul is referring to, he's directly referring to Israel and to the story of Israel. These ones that may not be our bloodline fathers, if you're a Gentile, but Paul is saying they're our fathers in the faith. These are the forerunners who God has chosen out to be His people in the same manner that He has chosen you to be His people. So I want us to look at the story of Israel as we go through that story, we'll count it and recount back to how Paul connects it here. But I want to start in Genesis chapter 12. I think that's a good place to be. In Genesis chapter 12, if you remember, God in His perfect timing appeared to Abram before he was called Abraham and promised Abraham something. He said, I'm going to make you into a great nation. And those who bless you, I will bless, and those who curse you, I will curse. That is the promise that God has given to Abraham. This is a very peculiar promise because Abraham is old and he has no children. But God has promised that he is going to give him many children. He's going to make him into a great nation, greater than the number of the stars. And eventually, we know through much I'll skip over some of the details through some very difficult circumstances throughout his life and things that he messed up on. God does start fulfilling this promise through Abraham. And he has a child with Sarah, Isaac. But this is not a nation as he has promised. And then we see the story goes on. And Isaac has two children, Jacob and Esau, still not a great nation. And we see that Jacob is renamed to Israel and he has 12 sons. And last time I checked, 12 is not a great nation. It's a lot of people, but it's not a great nation yet. But these 12 will turn into one. And one of these sons, Joseph, is not, if you remember the story, is not well liked by his brothers. And that might actually be a bit of an understatement. The others had more than just a little disdain towards him. He had the ability to interpret dreams and he had this dream that showed that his brothers would be bowing down before him. And they didn't like that very much. And as an older brother, I get that. When I was younger, if my brother would have said, I'm going to be greater than you, I would have not responded well. Now, the way that his brothers responded is that they had this hatred kindled toward him to the point that When Joseph was sent to check on them, they were out shepherding the sheep and they had them in pasture. Joseph was sent to check on his brothers and they see him coming and they they conspire together to kill him. I never once had that much disdain towards my little brother, although I am ashamed to admit I did act unkind towards him a few times. And they see him coming and they decide they're going to kill him. And then they're going to kill an animal, one of their sheep, and put the blood on his coat that he's proud of. And they're going to take it back to their father and go, look, we found our brother. He was eaten and destroyed by an animal. But Reuben, the eldest brother, changes their mind. He said, let's not kill the boy. Instead, let's place him in this pit over here. And so they they execute this plan. And Reuben had planned to come back when no one was around to rescue his younger brother out of the pit, no doubt to show that he is greater than his brothers. And when he showed up to the pit, Joseph's not there. He found out that the other brothers, instead of killing him, have retrieved him from the pit and sold him to a passing group of travelers on their way to Egypt, and they sold him to be a slave. And he ends up in Egypt. The short version of the story in Egypt is that that Joseph ends up rising to power. In fact, he rose to the number two position in the country. Only over the throne did Joseph not have power. Everything else in the country, Joseph had the right to to lead and to go over. This is because of a dream that he interpreted for Pharaoh. And he interpreted that there would be this famine that would hit Egypt. In fact, the whole ancient Near East would be hit. But before that seven year famine, there would be a seven years of great plenty. And so Pharaoh places Joseph in charge of all of these, all of this preparation. And for seven years, he gathers food together. And then this famine hits. And the whole world comes to Egypt because they have food and they have grain because Joseph has stored it up. And in one day walks none other than his brothers. And they say, we want some food, but they don't recognize him because they assume he's a slave somewhere, and he obviously looks like an Egyptian has got the the garb on. They have no idea that this is the brother that they sold into slavery, because if they did, they would not have shown up. If you walk into Egypt with the number two person in control and that's your brother that you sold into slavery, you would think it would not go well for you. They didn't know this, and they walk in, they ask for food. He gives it to them, and eventually, we skip ahead in the story, he brings his whole family into Egypt. Pharaoh gives them land to settle because he's pleased with Joseph. And over a number of years, this family, descended from Abraham, becomes a great nation within the borders of Egypt. And we start seeing God's promise being fulfilled. We start seeing this great work and this great, this great thing that God has done for them. We see in Exodus chapter one that the land was filled with them. Verse seven says that. There's a great many and a Pharaoh rose into Egypt that did not know Joseph. Joseph is dead and gone. A new Pharaoh rose up, had no idea who Joseph was, but what he does know is there is a large number of people that are not Egyptians. They're in our land. They may uprise against us, and if they do that, we're toast. So this Pharaoh ends up enslaving all of Israel. During all of this, because of some persecution to children, Moses, when he was born, was put into a basket, floated down the river. Pharaoh's daughter ends up finding him and adopting him into Pharaoh's family, and he is raised in the house of Pharaoh. And then after seeing an Egyptian being unkind, I guess would be a very nice way of saying it, to another of his countrymen, he knows he's not an Egyptian. He doesn't look like his family. He looks like these slaves. And he sees an Egyptian beating one of these slaves. And so he kills the Egyptian. And realizing that this is a bad thing, he flees away from Egypt. Some years later, God appears to Moses in a burning bush and tells him to go back. There's a new Pharaoh. most likely one that Moses knew from his childhood, go back into Egypt and tell the Pharaoh to release my people. If any of you have studied American history, releasing slaves tends to be somewhat contentious, just a little bit. If you've read history before that and you've read in England history, releasing slaves is a bit contentious. If you walk in, As a wanted murderer, you walk in to the king, likely a family member you know, a brother perhaps, and you say, I want you to release all of your slaves. It's got to be contentious. But Moses does it. And after 10 plagues that included the killing of the oldest child and families, the Israelites were told to leave Egypt, not just relieved. of their duties, but told to exit quickly. And in fact, while you're going, take all of this gold with you. Just get out. And so they're traveling out of Egypt. They are coming up to the Red Sea. Pharaoh changes his mind. His heart is hardened. And he comes after Moses and the nation of Israel, realizing he's made a mistake because they have no more labor force. And so they are approaching up to Israel. They've got their chariots, they've got their armies. Imagine if it was us going somewhere and we're we're traveling fairly slowly. There's a large group of people and the U.S. Army comes swooping in with their mechanized divisions. This is essentially what is happening. They brought the cavalry in. And they're essentially between a rock and a very deep, wet place of the sea. Or I say an army and a rock in a hard place, an army in this ocean. And the people are crying out. They're trapped. On one side, they see imminent death with the Egyptians. On the other side, they see imminent death of the water. They cry out to Moses. In Exodus 14, this is what Moses tells the people. And Moses said to them, fear not. Stand firm and see, this is important, see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You and you have only to be silent. I love that. Just be quiet and stand there and watch God do His work. So we see this promise of salvation to the people. And you know what happens? God saves them. God saves them. He tells them to stretch out your arms with your staff over the waters of the Red Sea and the waters split. And while this is happening, the presence of the Lord that was leading them, if you remember, it was fire by day, fire by night, smoke by day. It doesn't change forms magically when the sun goes down. It's just the idea of this burning, consuming fire. And at night, you could see the flames through the smoke, but during the day, because of the sun, you could just see the smoke. And this presence of the Lord, this great smoke cloud, comes over the people and stands between them and the Egyptian army and is essentially drawing a line to the Egyptians and saying, you shall not pass. And God stands guard as He's saving His people through the water. And the people don't just pass through on this lake bed or this sea bed, so to speak. It's dry. I don't know if you've ever tried to walk across a lake. It's not easy. It is deep, nasty, muddy in places. But it was dry. And they go all the way across. And when they get to the other side and they are safe, the Egyptian army is allowed to pursue them. The presence of the Lord allows them by. They get into the middle of the water. God confuses them. They realize this is probably a bad idea. No doubt someone looked around and saw a fish swimming next to the wall of water and realized this is a bad place to be. Tactically, we've made a mistake. God tells Moses to put your arms down. The water floods back over them and destroys them. And Israel sees that they are completely saved. They have seen this, not just God getting them out of Egypt, but He has destroyed Egypt in the process of doing this. I have never seen water split apart like that. I can't imagine. This is a very majestic thing that has happened. And this is the first event that Paul is talking about. He says, Do you remember your fathers? This nation of Israel that God promised He would make in Abraham, He did make and then He saved out of Egypt. They passed through the waters. They were under this cloud of God's protection. And then Paul uses a word that is common to us in the New Testament church and is all through the New Testament of baptism. They've been baptized, they passed through the waters of judgment and they came out on the other side. What Paul's saying is, you Corinthians have seen the same thing, just like I want you to know that our fathers passed under the cloud and passed through the sea and they were baptized. You in the church have been baptized, you too have gone under and through the waters of judgment and come up because of Christ's work. Just like the Corinthians, we too have been baptized as we enter into the church. We have been baptized to show this connection of Christ's work for us. And what Paul is saying is, I want you to see the connection between the church and between what happened to Israel. Now, pay attention. They're an example for you. In the same way you've been baptized, they also were baptized. And they saw this huge event. And they crossed over and they were saved. Then they grumbled after they crossed the Red Sea. They saw this saving work. They saw this army, no doubt the army of the day. Imagine seeing the United States military force destroyed. Or for those of us that grew up in the 80s, what if you saw all of Russia's army destroyed or maybe the Chinese army destroyed? That's what happened. They crossed over and then they grumbled. And they asked if God had taken them out of Egypt so that they could die in the wilderness. They said it would be better for us to be there enslaved because we would have food. But that wasn't God's plan at all. In the midst of a wilderness, God did provide for them food and he did it in the way of bread from heaven or If you grew up in the time that I did, often called manna, this manna from heaven, this bread that was given to them. And this is not food that you might think of as a normative thing in the wilderness. If you spent any time outdoors camping or hiking or going out somewhere, you don't see bread just appear. But this is what happened. This food was given to them, and Paul calls it spiritual food. It was food that was meant to not only provide for them physically, which it did, but it was to convey and show this special relationship that they had with God. God provided for His people. This food wasn't just physical. There's this relationship that God is showing. I saved you out of Egypt. You are My people, and I will prove it, and I will provide for you. This food pointed to God's provision for them. And Paul says that we'll see. He's he's he's he's tied together Israel and Corinth, and he's essentially saying when he's connecting these things is that you too, Corinthians, you also eat of a type of spiritual food. One that points to God's provision. We do the same here. Monthly, we eat in the Lord's Supper. We too participate in this meal as a reminder that points towards what Christ has done for us. See, this spiritual food, this man in the wilderness was more than just for physical. It was meant to be a spiritual reminder of who God is and how he has drawn them out as his special people. And so Paul is making this connection. They ate this spiritual food. He wants them to see this connection that you do too. He's going to, in chapter 11, we're going to see he's going to specifically talk about the Lord's Supper. When we eat the bread and when the Corinthians came together and celebrated this, we aren't just eating food and they weren't just eating food either. We are being reminded of the work of God through Christ for us. And Paul is saying, They ate spiritual food too. They saw God's provision for them. They were constantly reminded of this provision as they were given food daily. In fact, they didn't just eat a spiritual food, they also drank a spiritual drink. Right after they received bread from heaven and they traveled to an area without water, you'll never guess what they did. They quarreled with Moses and grumbled again. Crossed the Red Sea. Army being destroyed, food being provided, response, grumble, quarrel with Moses. So if you read Exodus chapter 17, you know that God tells Moses to go in front of the people, hit the rock, water comes out and we got water to drink. That's exactly what happened. In the same way as this bread, the water showed the relationship and provision that God had for his people. They were his chosen people and he would provide for them. This was not just water. It was not just a physical thing. It was a spiritual thing showing that they were connected to God. They were his people. The Corinthians also partook of a spiritual drink in the Lord's Supper. They showed Christ's work for them. Eat the bread and then drink the wine. We don't do that here because we like the taste of it. We don't do it here because the little cup that we drink provides enough liquid for us to be sustained the rest of the day. We do it because we are reminded of God's work. It's God's provision for us to be reminded of that. And so Paul is trying to connect together the story of Israel with the happenings in the Corinthian church. And the idea is here that these things didn't just happen once, that God provided for them all through the wilderness. Those that were punished were punished, but the ones who were the younger ones, under 20, those people were sustained all the way through. We see Paul saying that. They drank from the same spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. There's this idea that this happened over and over. Not that Moses hit the rock every day and carried this rock with him, but that there was this constant provision from the rock. Moses speaks of God as the rock over and over. We see it in Deuteronomy 32 very clearly. In Moses' song, this is some Hebrew poetry, he writes this in verse 4, the rock. His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, without iniquity, just and upright, He is He. And then, later on, in that same song, or that same poetry, in verse 15, But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked, you grew fat, stout and sleek. Then he forsook God who made him, and scoffed at the rock of the salvation. And then in verse 18, Moses goes on, you were unmindful of the rock that bore you and you forgot the God who gave you birth. And then in verse 30, how could one have chased a thousand and two have put ten thousand to flight unless their rock had sold them and the Lord had given them up for their rock is not our rock. Our enemies are by themselves. We see Moses making this connection between God being the rock, God being the firm foundation, the one who saved them out. We see this same language used other places. In Psalm 19, David, and I have no other word to use, but gushes. He gushes out about the greatness of who God is. And at the very end of the psalm, in verse 14, he says, Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be accessible in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. We see that this rock is God in the Old Testament. He has portrayed these attributes of being solid, being one who doesn't go anywhere, being there always. Paul is making this connection with them. Some people have tried to go back and forth in this text and try to find everywhere a rock was there and see Christ, and we make these weird topological connections, and I'm all for topology and making those connections, but they're not every rock in the Old Testament is about Christ. The purpose of this section is Paul relating Israel to the church at Corinth and saying in the same way that they made mistakes, you are going down that path too. In the same way they saw God being their provider, you see God being your provider. You're reminded of that in the Lord's Supper. They were baptized, you have been baptized. They saw these mighty works of God and you have too. And then he says in verse five, made this connection between the church and Israel. And he says, nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased. How do we know that? For they were overthrown in the wilderness. That is incredibly sad to me that these people, they got to see God split the waters. They got to see the provision in the wilderness. You know what they did when it came time to cross the promised land? They rejected him. And it's easy for us to say that is and I look at it, go, that's a sad state of affairs, us to look at them and go, how could they do that? But the reality of it is none of us in this room are any better. We're not any better. Paul is making this connection. And he's telling the Corinthians, there's a warning that's already happened. God has given us this warning. We see in verse 6, these things took place as an example for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. That's our application today. is to look back at Israel and see them as an example for us. They were baptized through water. God has provided for them. The reality of it is, as we come here, we see baptisms, we see the Lord's Supper, we see God's provision in our life. But if we're not careful. We're not really clinging to the gospel. When we get to the end of our lives, God might say, I'm not pleased with you. And I don't mean this as any kind of way of works-based righteousness or trying to earn anything. That's not where I'm going. What Paul is warning against and what I think that we need to be warned against today is that we not be like the Corinthian church and also like Israel and think that we have it all together and miss the point, which is Christ. There are people who come into the church and they come because they hear promises of wealth, health, They hear the promises that everything is going to be great. They hear promises that their marriages will be magically restored. And what they're doing is they're coming and they're using this, this, these gifts that people promise, and they're using this faith as a purchase of an idol of their own hearts. This is the warning that we must be careful of. We must not see all of these things and miss the point, which is Christ. I want to quickly look ahead at some of the things Paul says we're going to see in detail next week. He warns us. This is an example that we might not desire evil as Israel did. And then he in the in the coming verses list out some warnings, do not be adulterers, do not indulge in sexual immorality, do not put Christ to the test, do not grumble. And as I quickly look through that list, this evil defined, so to speak. I can't help but to look at my own heart and ask, do I do any of these things? Do you do any of these things? Maybe we should word it like this, what idols do do we have hidden in our hearts? Not, do we have any idols hidden up? Because I don't think, those of you that I know well, I've been to your houses, you don't have little icons or idols across your house. But that doesn't mean you don't have idols hidden in your hearts. How do these things manifest themselves in your life? Is your desire for comfort, which we saw with the Israelites? Or your desire for sexual sin, as we saw in them, your desire for gaining in the world's eyes. Did those things or have those things become more important to you than knowing Christ? Or maybe we should ask ourselves, how do we test Christ? Israel disobeyed and they tested to see if God would punish them essentially. How do you test the grace of Christ? Do you look at sin and go, I know I'm not supposed to do that. And then you look around and go, but nobody's watching and I'll be forgiven. I should ask, do you do that or in what areas do you do that? Because the reality of it is, I think we all do that. There are times where we slip in and we don't see the goodness of the provision of God in our lives. as better than sin. Maybe we should ask ourselves, how do we grumble in our current situation? Israel grumbled when they came out of Egypt. They had just been saved and they grumbled because they didn't have everything that they wanted at that time. How do we grumble in our place in life? Do you do that? Because when you're doing that, you're not walking in faith. You're not trusting that the Lord will provide for you all that you need. Not what you want, but what you need. And sometimes what we need is not what we want. So our response should be one of faith. The warning today is don't be like Israel and reject God. But instead, look to the cross. and walk in faith. How do we do that? Well, I think it's more than just saying that we believe Christ died for us. I often tell people, I've said it from here, too, that we should live our lives in view of the gospel with like a lens over it. We should do things in faith. I'm not talking about a word of faith movement. But sometimes I know in reform circles, what that means is that we have mental ascent of what Christ did and we mentally ascend to this is true. It's more than that. Biblical faith is not just that, but living in a manner that shows that you believe that. When we make decisions in life, when we just live our lives, are we actually walking in faith? I think that means that we must not only identify idols in our lives, but we must ask that the Lord would give us the ability to put them away because Christ has died for us. And that should be more valuable than anything else, and we should walk in a way that shows our faith, even in little ways. I listened to a guy preach this week, unrelated to preparing for this, but it actually applied. And he said that they had a pastoral intern at his church and the guy was preaching. They said he's very good at preaching. But they started noticing that as he was preaching, he's only looking at the elders of the church and the people who are over him. And they realized this man has no confidence in the gospel. He knows the gospel. He preaches well, but what he's doing is looking for our affirmation and not walking in faith that what he's preaching is true about Christ. So even in little areas like that, I think that we need to be to be looking to see if we're walking in faith. In our relationships, not just marital or with children or whatever, but just in general, are we doing things that show that we are actually believing and acting in faith? When you get in that awkward conversation with your neighbor that starts to turn towards spiritual things, walking in faith is that you present the gospel instead of saying, well, this is uncomfortable. Walking in faith means that when you get to uncomfortable conversations with your children, Instead of saying, well, we'll talk about another time that you take those opportunities to appropriately age appropriately, talk about those things in faith, knowing that that these are you should be telling them about the gospel and how the gospel applies in life situations. I don't know if I'll never be able to look at everyone's life or even my own life and look at every situation where I'm not living in faith, but we need We need to be examining ourselves, looking for this sin that we have and then working to walk in faith, which is opposite to the way that Israel walked. And I think opposite to the way that the Corinthian church is going. Paul is warning them. Remember, Israel, don't do that. And I know myself, as I read through this, my first thought was, I'm good. And then as I read through, I got to verse 12 in my prep this week, and I heard Paul's word. Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls. Even those of you who think you are right, take heed. And I immediately was thinking back. Again, to chapter four of Genesis, I mean, of Deuteronomy that we studied this part of this week on Wednesday night and over and over and over, we saw Moses tell the people, take care, take care, take care, keep your soul diligently so that you don't forget the promises of God. Paul is doing the same thing. Take heed. Always be paying attention to what's going on and be examining and looking for ways to exercise your faith so it's not just mental assent. Our call today, the call to the Corinthian church, the call to us is to heed the warning of Israel. Heed this example that was written to us. Verse 11, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction. so that we might not go the way that they went. Brothers and sisters, let us all be mindful of the manner in which we live our lives and how we talk about our faith and the way that we live out our faith. You see the warning here to Corinth is for us, too. You see that they saw things like we see. Yet they walked away and rejected God, and because of that, they were killed off in the wilderness. Paul is saying to us today that we need to be careful so that when it comes to the end of our lives, that we will be found good and faithful servants and not folks who are just acting like it and never knowing the truth. So I decided today I want to close with a reminder of the gospel. We can never hear this too many times. It's real simple. We see it all the way through the Old Testament to now that there is this holy God. And because of the fall, Mankind is sinful, all of us exceedingly sinful. And there's not a thing that we can do about it in and of ourselves. But there is one that was sent. Jesus Christ came fully man, fully God lived a perfect life and represented us on the cross and took the full burden of God, the Father's wrath upon him. And in doing that, extinguish the punishment for sin for his people and all those who call out and place their true biblical faith in Him will be saved. We're saved by grace through our faith. I think that's a reminder that we all need. That we look, we know not just that mentally, but that we work that out on a daily basis and we not run down the path that Israel went down. Let us pray. Father, we are so Thankful that you have given us examples that you have written down for our instructions. Father, we ask that you would change us. Oh, Father, point out the idols that we have in our own hearts. Point out the ways in which we sin. Give us ways out of that. You promised that you would. Help us to see it. To see those ways out and then to take it. Father, give us the ability to walk by faith. And to trust in the promises that you have given us from Scripture. And to steer clear of the things that will bring us your destruction. And Father, we pray all these things in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.