1 Corinthians chapter 10, and we've been working our way through this book. We started back in chapter 1 and verse 1, and we're now in the 10th chapter, and we have come to the place that our new study for this morning is verse number 8. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 8, would you look there? And you can follow along as I read. It says, neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day three and 20,000. Couple of days ago, in light of our text, I revisited a survey that was taken all the way back in January and February of 2005. It was taken by 1,100 of then current or former students at fundamental Bible colleges. I mean, that's the label that was used. There were about 20 total colleges represented. But the top two in terms of participants were Maranatha Baptist Bible College at that time and Bob Jones University there. Those two each had 14% of the participants, so together it's 28. The next two were Clearwater Christian College and Northland Christian College. I could go on, but I'm telling you, these are the top four represented. They're very familiar to us in this church. The target of the survey was young fundamentalists. Again, that was the label. So everyone who participated was under the age of 35. Most were well under, but they kind of cut it off at that point. They answered a series, 1,100 of these Bible college students, fundamental Bible college students or graduates. They answered a series of 105 questions about doctrine and church matters and lifestyle. It took, on average, over an hour to complete, and the authors of the study suggested that helped to eliminate people who weren't serious-minded. All right, so here are serious-minded, fundamental Bible college students. 73% of them who participated were either homeschooled or attended a Christian school. 68% profess salvation before the age of 12, another 21% between 12 and 18. So you're talking about 89% of these professing to be Christians by the age of 18. The overwhelming majority of the responses to the doctrinal questions were again and again consistent with our own church's statement of faith. I'm giving all that backdrop to say these were young people in what we, at least at some time in the past, would refer to as our fundamental circles. These are our fundamental Christian college young people. When it came to lifestyle, I'm going to zero in on one arena that's relative to the text we've already read this morning. There were several questions about more intensified forms of romantic intimacy with someone other than your spouse. I'm trying to be discreet in my descriptions this morning. I'll just say this. I'm not talking about hand-holding and kissing. I'm saying if you could read it. We're talking about what is beyond those kind of activities. And there were several questions about them. Well, the responses ranged from the high 80s to low 90s regarding that kind of activity and indicating that those activities were morally wrong in all circumstances. Extramarital, premarital, morally wrong. Now, at one level, that's encouraging to know that 90% agree with the Bible. At another level, it's sober because you're already at 10% that allow for some kind of situational ethics about what is black and white morality in the Bible. But when you move beyond belief to practice, the responses are far more concerning. When they were asked, the same group was asked about their own particular biggest vice was the way the wording was. The most frequently stated category was moral problems. 36% indicated that they had participated, they themselves had participated in what they had just said was morally wrong in all circumstances. They knew it was wrong, yet they participated. And listen to this number, 58% indicated that they had been more involved in the arena of physical contact than they wished they had. 58% were living with regret. At one point in the survey, I didn't see an exact figure, so I had to take some tallies from a percentage chart. But what I could tell, the percentage of these that had voluntarily viewed pornography, they didn't stumble on it, they voluntarily pursued it, was 66%. Almost 12% indicated that they had participated in some form of what the Bible describes as unnatural affection. Now that survey was not quite 20 years ago. In January it will be 20 years. But anyone that is familiar with what is going on in the lives of the young people in our Bible colleges today, they know that the numbers in terms of the percentages of those that are, and I'm using our text, that are falling into such sins, those numbers have only continued to rise significantly. They're not going down, they're going up. How? Why have so many young and old fallen into sins in this arena? Our text again has something to say about this specific fall. Now, if you've been with us, you know that this 10th chapter is the third of a three-chapter section of this epistle letter to the Corinthian church that's addressing one big, overarching topic. Sometime in the past, the Apostle Paul, who was the founding pastor of the church in Corinth, Sometime in the past, he had communicated a negative stance towards believers attending various social functions that were held on the grounds of the pagan temple. The draw to that kind of a practice of going to the temple was that in those communities, the temple in some cases were the only facility that could prepare and serve food on a large scale. So these temples, you can read about this in the first century, they were like the banquet halls of today. They were like the conference centers, the venue for the wedding receptions. They were like the country club of the day. So you really would, you'd celebrate weddings there, anniversaries, birthdays, various cultural events would be held in these temples. But when you did that, all of those events to one degree or another were dedicated to pagan deities. Like we pray for meals and we ask God's blessing on the proceedings that we're about to have. When we have something like that, those functions and the food involved were dedicated to idols. In some cases, the religious overtones would have been much stronger and more elaborate than just an opening prayer. And in addition to those dynamics, all around the facilities and all around the grounds of those temples would have been idol figures. You've been to some of these places and you just see these idols all over the place. And in addition to all of those dynamics, there was a significant presence of immorality. Temple prostitutes were another prominent feature of the entire scene. The temple in Corinth, the temple of Epaphrodite was known as the temple of a thousand prostitutes. The activities of the prostitutes were a common practice of cultic religion. It was part of the whole experience. So Paul had in the past made it clear that he was against going even to social functions when they were at the temple and the temple grounds. He saw it as being completely incompatible with the very calling of a Christian. The calling of one, again, all the way back to the beginning in chapter one of this epistle, the calling to be part of the church of God, the calling to be saints, called to be saints, holy ones. the calling to be separate from uncleanness of the culture and consecrated to God himself. For Paul, you just could not be consecrated to God and attending these events at the pagan temple. But the Corinthians had in turn written a letter to him. We see the first indication of that letter back in chapter seven. And they wrote a letter to Paul where they took issue with his position on a number of matters. And this was one of them. And about this topic of going to the pagan temples, they had argued for the right to attend based on their knowledge. We saw this in chapter eight, their knowledge of key facts. One of the facts was that now we're Christians. So as Christians, we know that an idol is nothing. It is just wood, right? It's just stone. It's just some precious metal. In addition to that, they knew that all food is just food. Meat eating is a matter of moral neutrality. You can pray over food to whatever God. I'm talking this is the way they would talk. You could pray over food to whatever God and the composition of the meat didn't change because it was dedicated to a God. Meat is just meat. And it's armed with this knowledge about the idols being just wood, about the meat being just meat. It's armed with that knowledge and the rationale that they were going for social aspects. We're going to grandma and grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary. We're not going there for false religion. With all of that rationale, they just didn't see any harm in it. So what we have now is Paul's response to their response. And we have three chapters where he is responding that there is harm being done on multiple levels. And the harm that he's highlighting here early in this 10th chapter is the potential for their own personal fall in descent. Look at verse number 12. We're coming back to verse 8, but there are several illustrations that he's using to run up to the point of verse 12. Verse 12, he says, Wherefore, let him that thinks he stands take heed, lest he what? Lest he fall. And he's issued this warning after providing multiple examples from Israel's history. Israel was a people that, in the first four verses of chapter 10, were incredibly blessed with seeing the hand of God. I mean, God led them through a cloud with a cloud. He led them right through the Red Sea that he miraculously parted. He gave them manna from heaven, and he gave them water out of a rock. And he provided for everything they needed. And yet in verse five, if you'll look there, they were a people that he was not pleased with. They fell into sin that brought on severe consequences. They were overthrown by God all over the wilderness of Sinai. Then beginning with verse six, Paul says, I'm gonna give you some examples of the kinds of sins they fell into that are very applicable to our own vulnerability about this liberty that you're arguing you have. For one thing, continuing on in verse six, they were craving, they were lusting for elements of the life they used to have. and they saw others still enjoying. You can remember when we explored that, that the craving or the lusting, as it says here, for evil things. Well, when we went back and looked, the things that they lusted after, the objects, weren't by themselves evil. What they were missing was the meat they used to have in Egypt and the fruit and the vegetables they used to have. And they were entirely dissatisfied with the provisions God was giving them of the manna. So the evil wasn't in the object, the evil was in the desire of their hearts. And the connection to the Corinthian situation is similar. What the Corinthians desired, I mean they desired to be present at weddings. They desired to be present at Birthday parties and they they desire to enjoy a good steak dinner and that's the best place you could go to get a good steak dinner That wasn't evil but what was evil was the pursuit of Not missing out on the social scene they wanted to stay connected to their culture and They had a dissatisfaction with a simple, consecrated to God, Christian life. And that craving by itself grieved God, and it opened up. It was like the gateway that opened up the door to other falls. And then in verse seven, there's a second example of these people falling into sin. In this case, it involved, what do you see there in verse seven? Don't be what? Don't be idolaters. Now we might be tempted to think, ah, now that's one that I just am not vulnerable to. But before you are so sure about that, look at the rest of the verse. The idolatry involved the people, do you see it there, sitting down to do what? To eat and drink. And they rose up to play. What's so horrible about eating and drinking and playing? It's like a church picnic, right, with volleyball. and softball games, and good food on the grill. But what we saw last week is that Paul's quoting Exodus 32. At a time where under pressure from the people for a blended worship, it literally is what they are wanting. They want to continue to worship Jehovah God, but they want to do it with the accessories of the culture that surrounds them. And under pressure from the people, Aaron, their leader, succumbed, and he gave them a feast in the name of Jehovah. But at the center of that feast was a golden bull calf. That was the rallying point. And again, when the Spirit of God, who is superintending Paul to write all of what we have here, when he superintends him to write 1 Corinthians, he doesn't cite the bull. You can read it again in verse seven. There's no mention of the bull, the golden bull. What he cites, at least initially, were these morally neutral accessories. It's food, and it's drink, and the spirit of God himself is making the point that associations matter. Even when it's associations with the morally neutral so-called non-essential accessories, when there are clear connections with the gods of the culture, those associations matter. Now there's a hint right here at the end of verse seven that even the morally neutral elements became components of a scene that involves something sensual. The people sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to, just say it with me so I know you're still with me here, they rose up to play. Okay, but all the commentators will extend out discussion on this. Some are far more thorough in pointing to cross-references. But what they all say is that the usage of this word play, in this case, was a euphemism for sexual relations. It's the same word, in the Old Testament, it's the same word that was used to describe Isaac caressing Rebekah. His wife and Abimelech saw it and he immediately knew they aren't brother and sister like they tried to, you know, pass off on us. This is what was happening. Now, that isn't terribly surprising when you know Exodus 32, and again, we were there last time. Because by the time Moses and Joshua got to the camp of Israel, where this blended, idolatrous worship was taking place, there was, remember this? There was music that could be confused with chaotic war sounds. There was dancing. that involved some kind of other uncovering. The King James says nakedness. Others go different directions with the translation of that word. But there was music that sounded like war. There was dancing that involved uncovering. And whatever that uncovering was, there's scripturally explicit statement that the whole entire package was shameful. Aaron had made the people shameful in the presence of their enemies. So again, think of this. They had the right object of worship, Jehovah God. At least some of the accessories were morally neutral. But the blending of worship with the accessories of the culture's idols was shameful. It did constitute a fall. It got sensual and many died under the judgment hand of God. Now here we move from verse 7 and at the end of verse 7 Paul doesn't fill out the details of the play. He just says it here more thoroughly. But it appears that he doesn't fill out the details because that's what he's going to zero in on in verse 8. And the passage we've already looked at, he moves right from eating and drinking and play to neither let us commit fornication. That is the Greek term porneia. It's the word that starts with pornography all the way up to the most vilest forms. It's the most general term for the pursuit of sexual pleasure outside of the marriage covenant. And many of them participated in that, and you can see 23,000 fell under the judgment hand of God in one day. Now, most of you have a marginal note, and we have to look there again because he's using examples from Israel's history. And most of you have a marginal note that directs us back to what Old Testament book, I don't mind if you say it, it's the book of Numbers, and what chapter? It's Numbers 25. And we do need to go back there. If you don't have it written in, write it. If your Bible publisher didn't put it there, write it in there. But we need to go back to Numbers 25. And I would just say this about this particular illustration that he uses. I think even the Corinthian church would have had to go back to Numbers 25 to remind themselves what happened there. And what kind of connections he's trying to make. Numbers 25 and we'll just start reading a couple of verses and we'll skip around a little bit. Notice verse one. Israel abode in Shittim and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods. And the people did eat and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And just to see that we're in the right context, look down at verse nine. Look at verse nine. And those that died in the plague were, how many? 20 and 4,000. Now some of you are gonna recall that 1 Corinthians said 23,000. were killed. 23,000 were killed in one day is the specific statement of First Corinthians. This passage is referring to 24,000 and the difference is that the 24,000 includes another 1,000 or so that died from the plague sometime after that initial day of God just striking them down. Now, the connection to the Corinthian situation is really clear, right? What's under discussion in Corinth between Paul and the church? Should we go to the feasts that are being held at the pagan temple? I'm warning you about idolatry. I'm warning you about immorality. What's going on here? Chapter 25, Israel's invited to A social function. Come have a feast. It's a social function that had associations to idolatry. And as a consequence of the connections made at the social function, the men of Israel in the very first verse participated in immorality with the Moabite women. Brethren, this was a planned seduction to immorality and idolatry through a social event. It was a planned seduction. Now today, the threat is so much greater. because you don't have to leave the confines of your home to be exposed to boatloads of immoral seduction. You can use your device to connect into what is called what kind of media? It is literally what kind of media? It is social media. And social media can be used positively. But any kind of unguarded access of social media is going to quickly get to seduction to immorality in various forms. And it doesn't have to be just through social media. An unguarded phone is itself a major source of connection to a social world that in many cases is unseen by parents and unseen by spouses and unseen by others. And that whole world through the phone and FaceTime and all the other possibilities of technology connects with others that is full of seduction and falls into sin. And I'm telling you, brethren, pastorally, I don't know if I have heard a fall in the past decade into this kind of sin that was not occasioned at some level by an unguarded phone. I'm not talking young, old, it doesn't matter. Men, women, I don't know of a fall in the last decade that somehow or another wasn't occasioned by a phone. And there are in-person social events like birthday parties and slumber parties, or just closed door sleepovers, in some cases with cousins, where the access to movies and music and videos is full of seduction. It's all social. but it is all full of seduction to immorality. Now this passage doesn't tell us right away what we later learn in chapter 31 in verse 16, and I do want to have us go there. What we end up learning is that a particular person was behind all of this Seductive plan. It's just a few pages over, chapter 31, and I'm going to, for time's sake, just have to drop in here, but in verse number 16, you could see it if you just glance up before, this is a reference to Moabite women. And this is what it says about the Moabite women. They caused the children of Israel, and here's the phrase I want you to see, through the counsel of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. So who was the mastermind? behind this plan for a social function that involved false worship, where at that function, Moabite women are going to seduce the men of Israel to fornication. Who's behind all of that? Well, we have his name here. Who is it? It's through the Council of Balaam. But what do you know about Balaam? Balaam back in chapter 22 and right on up for several chapters, you don't need to go there. Balaam was a preacher. Balaam was in the Old Testament context, he was a prophet. And the story of Balaam was that this was a prophet that the king of Moab tried to hire to curse Israel. I mean, the Moabites are getting fearful. Israel is coming in. They're taking over the land. He tries to hire this prophet to curse Israel. But every time the prophet Balaam opened his mouth instead of cursing, he ended up Blessing and he promised blessing that even included ultimately the coming of the Messiah himself. He kept proclaiming blessing. He kept proclaiming the coming of Christ. And I'm about to use some phrases that I know I'm using very purposely to make a point, but I'm also going to be factual in the phrases I'm using, all right? I'm setting you up for this, but I'm telling the truth while I'm doing it. Balaam was an exegetically accurate preacher. Balaam was true to the words God had given. And frankly, Balaam was more than just a really faithful expositional preacher, because Balaam was receiving revelation, special revelation from God. So what came out of Balaam's mouth under revelation from God is more faithful than anything I'm saying. And further, in regard to the content, Do you know what Balaam proclaimed? He proclaimed Christ-exalting messages. And there's explicit statement that he preached with the Spirit of God on him and empowering him. But in the end, The ultimate fruit of his leadership and influence was the people of God seduced into idolatry and the immorality connected with it. The prevailing impact of his influence was actually contrary to the faithful words he preached. He was preaching good messages and the power of the spirit that pointed to Christ. but the totality of his influence was contrary to the messages he preached. Now in Balaam's case, we later learn why he did it. Like what, what would get into a guy that he would do that? Well, 2 Peter, I'm not turning to these passages, but 2 Peter 2 tells us that Balak paid Balaam a significant financial reward for his counsel to help weaken Israel. This is like the business, you know, hires some kind of marketing director, business coach, whatever, and they're gonna come in and they're gonna counsel you about how to get an advantage on the competition. Well, Balak paid the preacher named Balaam a pile of money for this counsel. Now we obviously can't know why every leader exerts an influence towards embracing sensuality and worship, but again and again in the Bible, hurtful leaders are said to be motivated by personal gain. I'm not gonna turn us to this one either, but in Romans 16 and verse 17, Paul said, I beseech you, brethren, to mark those which cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which ye receive. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly. and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. They're introducing deviations from faithful worship. They're doing it for their own gain, but they deceive people into thinking it's really about God. In Acts 20 in verse 30, Paul said to the elders of the church in Ephesus, of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things, now listen, to draw away disciples after them. Over 30 years ago now, I sat in what, Stratton Hall, I think it's Stratton Hall, I can't remember what's, been renamed a few times. But Dr. Bob Jones, Jr., in an address to the ministerial class I was a part of, he said this. He said, any religion that allows freedom for the flesh to express itself will look successful. Any religion that allows freedom for the flesh to express itself, it's going to gain a following. You can get religion and your fleshly appetite and expression at the same time. I'll take it. And there are rewards for leaders whose following seems to be growing. And that can be a powerful motivator to go ahead and let people have the fleshly appetites they desire in their worship. But the church in Corinth wasn't the only church addressed about the dangers of Balaam. I wanna have us go all the way to the end. Look at Revelation chapter two. And this is the last passage we will turn to, but Revelation chapter two. Revelation for context is written about 40 years after Paul's addressing the church in Corinth. So now we've skipped forward another generation. And in Revelation 2, you can see in verse 12 that now the Lord Jesus himself starts addressing the church in Pergamos. And I want you to see what he says to the church in verse 14 that he has an issue with. Look at verse 14. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Okay, this is the same guy in Numbers that now Paul's warning about to the Corinthian church, and now Jesus is talking about to another church. All right, now it says doctrine, but when you go on to read, the doctrinal issue wasn't one like denying the inspiration of scripture of the deity of Christ. What was the Lord against? He was against the doctrine of Balaam, who, continue to read, taught Balak. So now again, we have another confirmation. It was Balaam that actually advised and taught the king of Moab to cast a stumbling block. What happens at stumbling blocks? People do what? They fall. He taught them to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel so the children of Israel would fall by what? Continue reading. Eating things sacrificed unto idols and to commit what? Fornication. What did the danger involve? In numbers, in Corinth, 40 years later, in Pergamos, it started with, again, what the Corinthians wanted to call innocent, morally neutral eating. But that was the first step into the idolatrous practices and the immorality involved. Now, I think that we are all aware of a ministry philosophy today that deliberately attempts to draw people into worship by appealing to sensuality. What is so subtle about it today is that it's not the worship of Baal that people are being drawn into, but it's a worship of Christ. And you go almost back to Exodus 32, it's the worship of Jehovah God. Today what we're wrestling with is maybe not so much a parallel to then Numbers 25, in some ways not even as much to 1 Corinthians, but it is a parallel to Pergamos. It's a church of Jesus Christ. The preaching is out of the Bible. The lyrics are about God. The lyrics of the music are about God. But all of the accessories and their associations are contributing to sensuality in worship that is leading generation after generation of our own into immorality. And I'm going to go way back this morning to the springs of this movement that has become known as contemporary Christian music. Amy Grant has been recognized. You can just go to Expedia, right? Online dictionary or what is it? Encyclopedia Expedia. And Amy Grantsman recognized since the mid-1980s as the queen of Christian pop music. But almost as soon as she was recognized that way, she made a shift. By the late 80s, she was already making a shift to try to bridge the gap to making it big in mainstream pop music. We ministered for seven years in Milwaukee and then 14 years out in the country in Wisconsin. But in a Milwaukee Journal article that I have in my file, a reporter wrote about Amy Grant that she uses, and I'm going to quote, she uses all of the commercial weapons available, including sex, to promote her music. Maybe the come hither look on her album indicates she wants you to come over and talk about God, but who is to know? That's the Milwaukee Journal. They quote Amy as saying, I want to be sexy in a godly way. Does it sound like Exodus 32, and Numbers 25, and First Corinthians, and Revelation 2? Well, Michael W. Smith often collaborated with Amy, and he ended up being a major influence on his own. Smith said he wanted to be remembered as a God-fearing man who loved his wife and children. But in this case, it's a Wall Street Journal article. Wall Street Journal article talked about one of the videos that Michael W. Smith made, and this is really before videos took off. He made it to promote an album one of his albums, and they describe it. This is the Wall Street Journal. The video shows a dreamy Mr. Smith singing and playing the piano in the middle of a desert while a young, pouting, and gorgeous woman wanders around in the sand. Eventually, the two find each other, hold hands, hug, and sort of nuzzle. A friend of mine was in the bookstore of Moody Bible Institute. a number of years ago and playing on the monitors in the bookstore was a music video. But everything about the presentation and the sound made my friend think that it was a secular rock band. Until he heard some religious words. He asked a young student worker who that was up on the monitors, and a young lady said, it's Michael W. Smith. Isn't it great? He's coming here for a concert next week. Now, there are some really good Bible teachers and expository preachers. And there are some men that write really good books at Moody Bible Institute. I mean, I've listened to them preach. I've read their books. But those very men are themselves exercising leadership in a way that is furthering the inroads of sensuality in a new generation, even in worship settings. And it's no wonder why we are seeing so many falls. A man can be, and I hope that we really do hear this out, a man can be a really good expositional preacher. And yet the total package of his leadership be an influence towards sensuality that does a lot of damage to the people of God and the cause of Christ. And we don't have a lot of time to elaborate on this, but think about what is lost. What is lost when people fall into fornication? Well, every sin that a man commits is without the body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body. He that commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding. He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonor shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away. When men leave the natural relations with women, they receive, according to Romans chapter one, they receive in themselves the due penalty, the recompense for their error. And seven times the New Testament says that a life surrendered to fornication will not inherit the kingdom of God, but will be eternally judged in hell. So here's the message to us from the Bible this morning. Do not be seduced to immorality through sensual social connections. And be warned about the dangers even of good preachers whose influence keeps promoting more and more sensuality in worship. And if anybody sits there and says, ah, you're going overboard, would you hear this? Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he, what? Lest he fall. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?