WARNINGS FROM ISRAEL

Date: Sun Aug 30 23:21:08 2009

This stems from my own Bible Study last evening of I Corinthians 10:1-13 - please read that passage carefully and then this message. I call it WARNINGS FROM ISRAEL, because the Lord wants us to learn from those who have gone before. The Old Testament is FULL of lessons and t behooves us to learn them.

So many people have experienced God's salvation - like Israel of old, they have been saved from destruction and baptized, witnessing God's deliverance and his wonderful miracles. Christ has been available to all of them to feed them and nourish them, but it seems all have not gotten the benefit of what God has provided for them. I am sure that even though you my share or preach the same word to all, some eagerly eat it, digest it, and live it, while others store it as belly fat, simply giving them a gut but no muscle or spiritual strength. Others are picky about their spiritual food. They love the deserts that are part of the spiritual food given by Christ, but avoid the vegetables and fiber needed to clean out our systems and our lives. The spiritual food from our Rock, Jesus Christ, is well balanced and is designed to meet ALL our needs, not just our sweet tooth. Certainly it is that way in our country today as well as in many others. We need to grow up in Christ and partake of his body and his blood or we have no part in him.

God was not pleased with M-O-S-T of the Israelites after they crossed the Red Sea. Time after time they grumbled and complained and rebelled against God and his servant Moses. They died before they could enter the Old Testament Kingdom of Israel. Their bodies were scattered all over the Sinai desert. Even Moses did not enter that earthly Kingdom. Despite his many years of faithfulness, his act of disobedience in striking the rock disqualified him. How many people today understand that God changes not? His standards are very high. He does not make excuses and exceptions. I often hear ìGod understandsî when we fall short. God DOES understand, but that doesnít mean he gives you a pass. Moses ended up in heaven, but he missed out on the Promised Land. God is trying to warn us so we donít repeat the mistakes of the Israelites OR the mistake of Moses.

The first way the Israelites displeased God was that they set their HEARTS on evil things. Sometimes people are thinking good and Godly thoughts and meditating on the Word and all, but their true self, their HEART is really set on evil. Sometimes it is envy, sometimes it is partiality, sometimes it is simply worldly desires overwhelming their love for the Lord. I am shocked sometimes of the DVDís or videos I see in Christian homes. If you canít watch it with Christ, you canít watch it! Would Christ sit down and watch a movie that takes his name in vain and mocks him, and uses filthy communication, and portrays fornication and adultery in a positive fashion? You know the answer to that. If our heart is set on evil things, start to set your heart of Christ-honoring things. He must be the center of your desires.

The second way is idolatry. They valued the same things the Pagans valued. People here sometimes value heir homes, cars, jobs, positions, titles, and college degrees the same way the world does. I do not believe God hates any of those things, but HE has o be first, and these things cannot take PRECEDENCE over the Lord. We must love him first and worship him ONLY. We have to hold LIGHTLY anything he chooses to give to us. If what we have possesses us, get rid of it. That was the message to the rich young ruler and it is still Christís message to us. Contrary to prevailing teaching, 90% of what is added to us is NOT ours to o with as we please. 100% of what we have is Godís property, and we are merely stewards. GOD is the one who decides how much to spend on a car or on entertainment or vacations, and it is GOD who decides how much of that 100% he needs for the work of his Kingdom. Christ had different requirements for different people. We must give him whatever he requires of US! With Paul, as noted just a bit earlier in this same book of I Corinthians, Paul did not get salary and generous travel allowances as did the other apostles. He needed to be dependent only on God. God has a personal relationship with each of us, and God is fair as GOD looks a fairness.

The third is sexual immorality. Too many Christians think if they are sinning with another Christian it is not as bad and more easily forgiven. A prophet friend saw a man and dealt with him on his immorality. He said he was not "sleeping around". Yet when pressed, he admitted sleeping with one girl whom he had a relationship with. Christians need to have God's standard - have all the sex you want with your SPOUSE, but no sex of any kind with anyone else. God disposed of 23,000 in one day. Christians are dying spiritually and physically because of ignoring God's demand for total holiness. Could you imagine the strength of the church just if there were no more pornography, fornication, or adultery among true believers? Can you imagine the weeping and gnashing of teeth when God carries out his promise that no fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals will enter the Kingdom of God? And get this ñ greedy folks, drunkards, thieves, SLANDERS, or swindlers are likewise banned from the Kingdom of God.

A really narrow door, huh? Luke 13:24 reads, ìHe said to them, ëMake every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to._íî Or take Revelation 21:27, ìNothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitfulÖî Itís tight, but itís right! It was tight in the Sinai desert. And it is tight now. The love of God expressed in the sacrifice of Christ does NOT override Godís standards for holiness. In fact, Christ ratcheted it up a few notches. Now we canít even THINK about doing it! No, my friends, God does not ìunderstandî. He had given the Holy Spirit to us to empower us. He has high expectations, and high demands. He is satisfied with NOTHING LESS than the righteousness of Jesus Christ himself. Since the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now dwells in us what excuse do we have to practice sin? None!

The fourth is testing the Lord. So many pastors actually TELL people to test the Lord , often in the realm of giving. The result is that people are bitten by Satan. They believe they can manipulate God, which Satan tried to do with Jesus in the wilderness when he faced great temptation. We must believe God, but not try his patience. We must not be presumptuous. Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed-Nego believed that God COULD deliver them from the fiery furnace. Yet, their faces were set like flint that whether God preserved them or not, we would not obey the evil command of the king. That is no lack of faith. The scripture ìwhen you walk through the fire, you shall not be burnedî had been written over 100 years earlier (Isaiah 43:2), and surely as princes in Israel they knew that scripture. They were confident in God but were not presumptuous. There are other scriptures such as the later accounts in Hebrews 11 which describe the horrors done to the saints, and the number of Christians burned at the stake is mind-numbing. Note though, that in the book of Daniel, the three Hebrew boys were WALKING in the furnace. Isaiahís prophecy was literally fulfilled, just as were all the prophecies about the Messiah. The Israelites in he wilderness were messing with God ñ they were testing his patience and his love. We can be confident in God without testing him. It comes from gentle submission to his authority and to his will. When we do that, God moves.

The fifth is grumbling. God killed Israelites for grumbling and he will kill us. We must not complain. God hates unthankfulness. God despises the undercurrents of discontented people whom he has blessed. We must just honor the Lord.

The last deals with temptation, and it is that sometimes we don't realize that Jesus is Lord over the temptations that come our way. God tempts no man (James), and he will NOT allow Satan to test us beyond that which we are able. All temptations are common to everyone - we must never think that we are the only ones being tempted. Satan is not original. He repeats he same temptations over and over. Easy money attainable with lies. Pretty lady switching her hips right in front of us as we walk down the street, wearing EXACTLY the outfit that appeals to us. On and on it goes.

Satanís keeps throwing out the same temptations, because more often than not, they work. I remember a fellow student at a mostly male college. He liked to brag about his sex life. He had a simple method. He would go downtown near a girlsí college and stand on a corner and proposition girls in a crude fashion as they walked by. No one could believe that would work. He was shameless and simply said that most said no, but there was ALWAYS someone who would say yes. Satan is like that ñ he goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Satan is after body count. He wants to pick off as many in God's Army as he can. He wants people to fall. It is nothing personal with you. He throws it out there, and figures someone will fall for it. And they do. A pastor of a church I was trying to get work with just resigned two weeks ago. He had been preaching on the second coming of Christ for SIX MONTHS, but had been in a sexual affair for a year! Can you imagine telling people to get ready for Christ returning while you were having an affair??? Talk about testing God!!!

No temptation need be fallen to. God ALWAYS makes a way to escape so we can stand up to it. We must rely on Christ to keep us. After all, the Bible says that Jesus was tempted in EVERY WAY that we were - by money, by the ladies, by pride, by wanting to grumble, by idolatry, by EVERTHING, yet he NEVER sinned. We simply have to ask him how HE did it, and rely on the SAME HOLY SPIRIT who indwelt Christ and who now indwells us to give us the SAME RESULTS as Jesus - a life without sin! It is possible. Read about Stephen and Daniel and Joseph. We have to stop making excuses and just do what God demands! We don't want our bodies to be scattered on the ground because God is displeased with us - we want to be in the Kingdom he has prepared for those who love him!

Praise the Lord!