I Corinthians 10:1

First Corinthians 10:1

In order to give an example of how the people of God can suffer destruction or can suffer some very negative consequences if they fall into certain sins, Paul used an example from Moses and what happened to some of the people who were following him after the miraculous escape from Egypt. The Bible says in First Corinthians 10:1-5, "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 were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ."

When a human being comes into a relationship with God through faith, they find themselves in the same circumstance as everyone else that is rightly related with God. Salvation is by grace through faith. That is true today, and it was also true in the time of Moses. There are many ways that salvation is described in the Bible. Salvation is related to the opening of a door, the drinking of water, the finding of a treasure, the eating of bread, the blowing of the wind, and many other ways. Here at the beginning of First Corinthians Chapter 10, it is described as a connection and an identification. If you make the right connection with God through Christ and if you become identified in the right way with God, then you will be saved.

The connection and the identification that you must have with Christ is entirely spiritual in nature. Baptism is used in this passage to describe the spiritual connection between the believer and God. There are two baptisms in the Bible. There is a water baptism, and there is a spiritual baptism. The water baptism is purely symbolic in nature. You cannot be saved from your sins or cleansed from your sins by water baptism. It is the spiritual baptism that gives the spiritual birth through Jesus and creates the vital connection with God. Anyone who is saved has had this spiritual experience, because Jesus said, "You must be born again."

John the Baptist said, "I baptize with water, but one comes after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." The water baptism like the one that John the Baptist gave is only symbolic in nature. You must have the spiritual baptism that only Jesus can give in order to become identified with God. The children of Israel in the time of Moses became identified with God because they crossed the Red Sea and they followed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. They were there with all the rest. They all had the same blessings and the same privileges. They all ate from the same heavenly manna, and they all drank from the same miraculous source of water. But eventually something went wrong. Verse 5 says, "But with some of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness."

These chastisements that happened to the people of God during the time of Moses are now lessons for us to learn. Unless we are careful, the same thing could happen to us. At least we do have the opportunity to be instructed and reminded by what happened to the children of Israel could happen to us. In First Corinthians 10:6-10 five sins are listed that some of the children of Israel committed, and we are warned to be careful not to commit the same sins. The Bible says, "Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be you idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur you, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer."

The five sins that we are warned about are: lust, idolatry, fornication, tempting Christ, and murmuring or complaining. A lust is a strong desire. Any desire can easily become a strong desire, if you are not on your guard. And then that lust can control you and ruin you. The reason that strong desire is such a great sin for a believer is because our will is supposed to be surrendered to God. Jesus gave us the great example when He said, "Not my will, but thine be done." You cannot serve God unless you are surrendered to His will, and you will not be surrendered to His will if you are going about to fulfill your own desires. Be careful or your own will and your own desires will destroy you. Life is not at all the way it sometimes appears. Jesus said, "He that saves his life shall lose it, but he that loses his life for my sake and the gospel the same shall save it."

The second sin that some of the children of Israel committed, that we must also guard against, is the sin of idolatry. Idolatry is when you love something more than God. God is a God of love. We cannot imagine how much God loves us, and He wishes to be loved in return. The first of the Ten Commandments is; “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy soul and all thy strength. You must be careful about how much you love anything or anyone, because you should love nothing more than God.

Some people realize when they fall in love that their love must have come from God because only God could do such a wonderful thing and prepare two hearts for each other, and therefore they love God all the more, even while loving each other. If God has given you one or more to love, it would not be the proper thing to love them more than God, and yet many people have made this mistake. When Jesus talked about how much we should love God, he said that in comparison with our love for God, our love for those closest to us should be like hatred. Not that we would hate them, but that we would love God so much more. One of the great purposes of life is to learn to love God more and more, so when you come to love someone or something else, if you are not careful, there is the danger that you will love them too much, and your love will become idolatry; and the idolatry will then destroy your spiritual life.

Notice that when the idolatry of the Israelites is described, it says in First Corinthians 10:7 that "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." The idolatry is described in terms of normal daily activities. Of course, there is nothing wrong with eating and drinking, but it can become so important to someone that it overrides a person’s willingness to follow God. Remember that Jesus was tempted by the devil to change stones into bread when Jesus was hungry, but when it was not the will of God for Jesus to eat; and Jesus said to the devil, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word of God." There are some things that must be more important to you than even your daily routine that is a part of your survival; and what must always be more important is whatever God wants you to do. If believers are not careful the same thing can happen to them today. Living in this world and making a life in this world can become more important than loving Christ and serving Him. Just like some of the children of Israel during the time of Moses, some believers in our day have seen the destruction of their spiritual lives because of how important it became to them to sit down to eat and to drink, or to do all the other things that people do in this life. It is a question of priorities.

Not only did they commit idolatry in eating and drinking, the Bible says that they "rose up to play." The word that is translated "to play" comes from a Greek word that has the same root as the word child or infant. To play is not a bad thing when it is a child that is playing. It is normal and healthy for a child to play, but it is a different matter when you are talking about adults. God knows that humans need rest and diversion from time to time, and He created the Sabbath and other special days for the children of Israel. Even Jesus got away from it all from time to time. But the primary purpose for which we are on the earth is to accomplish something, and to accomplish something for God. Be careful or you may lose sight of this. You may start running from one entertainment and one diversion to another. It might become the purpose of your life to rise up to play, and thereby your opportunity to accomplish something for God could be destroyed.

The children of Israel committed the sin of lust or strong desire, they committed the sin of idolatry or loving something more than God, and they committed the sin of fornication. There is nothing fancy about understanding what is fornication. It is sexual immorality. The warning is very clear: a believer can come to destruction because of sexual immorality. It can happen. It has happened before, it will happen again, and it might happen to you unless you are careful. Sex was created by God for marriage. Outside of marriage sex is a destructive force that destroys people and it can destroy believers. Do not let your guard down. Do not listen to the foolishness of the world. Flee fornication.

First Corinthians 10:9 says, "Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents." Why is it such a great sin to tempt God? What does it mean to tempt God? When Jesus was tempted of the devil in the wilderness, the devil told Jesus to jump from the top of the temple in order to prove that he was the Son of God. The answer that Jesus gave was, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." God created gravity, and He created man with the capacity to understand the effects of gravity. If you jump from something, the higher that it is, the greater is the chance of injury. And if it is high enough, death will result. The lesson is this: do not violate out of your own will the way God made gravity, or the way that He made life, or the way that He made the world; and then expect that God will protect you. That is tempting God. God gave you a mind for a reason. To serve God means to use common sense and to do the things that you have control over. If you do that which is foolish, do not expect God to protect you from the consequences of your actions.

Many of the sorrows and many of the problems that happen to believers are consequences of their own unwise actions. For every action there is a reaction. The law of cause and effect will take place in the life of every person on the earth, including believers. God will not make exceptions for you just because you believe in Him. One of the things that explains what happens to people is to understand that there are consequences to their own actions. Do not ever plan some foolish action thinking that you will then trust God to bail you out. If you do, your life may very well be destroyed or greatly harmed as a result.

In First Corinthians 10:10 the Bible says, "Neither murmur you, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer." To murmur is to complain. Why is complaining such a great sin when it is done by a believer? Complaining and believing just do not go together. When you complain you are demonstrating that you do not believe that God is in charge or that you do not accept what God has chosen to permit. To complain is to not believe. When we come to know Christ, we come into a relationship with the great God of the universe. We enter into a spiritual life where we are guided by the love of God. Everything that happens to us is arranged and planned by God. We are supposed to recognize and enjoy such a wonderful truth. That is the life of faith, and that is why the Bible says, "In all things give thanks." Psalm 100 says, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing." It does not matter what else you accomplish. If you become a complainer, then you are failing at faith and you are no good in the service of God. Some of the children of Israel were destroyed because they murmured. If you are not careful to look on the positive side, and if you are not careful to believe that God is involved in a good way in all that happens to you, then you might become a complainer and a murmurer and your spiritual life would then be destroyed.

For a second time in this passage Paul reminds us that we can learn from what happened to the children of Israel when they failed to properly follow God. The Bible says in First Corinthians 10:11, "Now all these things happened unto them for our examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." In this verse we are reminded once again of the value of the written Word of God. The Bible is God’s Word. The Bible is accurate, it is without error, and it is reliable. You can have confidence in the Bible as the truth from God. God loves us. He wants us to know how to live in the world, and He wants us to know what is true about Him, and He wants us to grow in faith. It makes sense that God would have given us a written word. Without the written Word, it would only be one person’s opinion against another’s. We have the Bible as the source for understanding the truth about God.

The Bible tells us about God’s love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. For example, John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." The Bible also gives us warnings about the destructive nature of sin and selfishness. No matter who you are or what you believe or what you may have accomplished up to this point, be careful or sin will get a hold of you and destroy you. First Corinthians 10:12 says, "Wherefore let him that thinks he stand take heed lest he fall."

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