Believers Displeasing God (Part One): full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 He’s going to show us that believers can displease God and be punished for it. A better word is correction. Say the word: correction. Correction. Be disciplined for it. And we find all throughout the Bible that God allowed Satan to correct God’s people that sinned through plagues, wars, acts of God, famine, wild animals, uh, family issues. David’s son died, uh, his sons rebelled, David had to deal with his own sons, uh, he caused rebellion in the home, uh, through, through Satan, uh, evil spirits, harmful spirits to individuals, and captivity. All these things can happen to, for God’s people to be corrected. But Christians don’t want to hear this, but it’s still Bible, and Paul’s going to approach this subject this morning.

▶ 0:52 And, uh, a quick, short reminder: remember, one quarter of the 16th chapter is about division, which America is full of. All of us think we got the answer, and we don’t like the other guy that has a different answer. Uh, 3/16 of his seminar is about sexual immorality, and it’s bad in America and it’s bad in the church in our day. Then he talked about idolatry, and so he took up one half of this seminar on three subjects. Then he talked about himself being an apostle and clarifying what an apostle was, and then he gave us this tremendous example of how he pursued the gospel prize using four necessities to reach it, so that he, the apostle, called to the third heaven, saw Jesus personally, would not get disqualified while he was winning others.

▶ 1:49 And with that great statement, then he turns and he points to the Corinthian believers, and he says, “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all of our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea.” He directing everything at them. Now in Exodus 13:21, “The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead the way.” See, they were all under the cloud. The cloud spread over them, and then there was a pillar of a cloud down leading them, and so God’s presence was there in the form of a cloud. They actually saw God in the form of a cloud and a pillar of fire, and He was leading the way. All right, in Exodus 14:27, “The Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. There remained not one.” See, they all experienced the power of the enemy being destroyed.

▶ 2:52 Paul knows what he’s doing here. Are you with me so far? Then we read in Revelation 7:17 that the New Testament church, “the Lamb shall feed them and lead them into living fountains of water.” See, they were headed for Canaan land, the Promised Land, but God’s leading us to living waters. Hallelujah. I get so excited about this, and you guys look at me like, “What?” Now, not only that, but in Hebrews 2:14, “through death Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the Devil.” So see, in the sea they had the enemy of the Egyptian army, the enemy that was wanting to destroy them, destroyed. But today we have who? Satan destroyed through the death of the cross. The power of the cross, the cross is powerful. See, Satan’s destroyed. Remember, he’s rendered powerless. He don’t have power over us anymore.

▶ 4:00 And so Paul is explaining just like they experienced these things, we experience these things. And then he says in verse 2, 1 Corinthians 10:2, “All were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food.” Okay, every one of them. And in John 6:48, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness.” He said, yes, they had spiritual food, but they all died. You say, “But I’m the bread of life, you eat My food and you will never die.” Isn’t that beautiful?

▶ 4:41 And in Romans 6:4 and 6 he says, “We are buried with Jesus by baptism unto death.” This is why water baptism is important. You see, we identify with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and something is actually done in water baptism that a lot of people don’t understand, but they need to understand it. It’s not just a little sermon or ceremony, I’m sorry, that we do in the church. He says all of us are buried with Him. When we get water baptized, we go into the grave with Christ, and as Christ was raised up out of that grave by the glory of the Father, so we should walk in newness of life. You see, He came out of the grave, but we come out of the water a new creature.

▶ 5:29 And now he doesn’t stop there. He goes on and says this: “Knowing that our old man of sin is crucified with Him,” in water baptism, “that the body of sin might be” what? Destroyed. See, God destroyed the Egyptian army over in Israel, but it was an illustration that He was going to destroy the sinful nature in the new covenant, “that the body of sin might be destroyed, that from this time forth he would not serve sin.” Isn’t that powerful? See, that’s the power of water baptism, and most people, even when they got baptized, they just did it as a thing, but this is the power of baptism. Paul knew all this, and he’s setting the Corinthians up.

▶ 6:22 Okay, he says they all drink, in verse 3, “the same spiritual drink, and they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them.” A rock followed Israel.

▶ 6:38 Wow. Now that should get your attention. I don’t remember reading no rock following anybody. Well, Paul’s going to show us. All right, Paul’s a really sharp boy, he really is. Okay, and he tells us who the rock was. That rock was Christ. Christ was following them in the wilderness. I don’t remember reading that. That’s why we need to come to church. That’s why we need teachers. See, you can’t receive things that you haven’t understood yet and believe for. Okay, now we’re going to take a closer look at Israel’s rock. How many want to see that? Yeah, okay. We have a map up here. Right down here is a little circle, Mount Sinai, and up here is another circle, uh, Kadesh Barnea is right above it.

▶ 7:38 This is what it says in Exodus 17, verse 6: “You shall smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink.” And Moses went and smote the rock in sight of the elders and the people. And literally, I was going to bring a stone in, I forgot to bring a stone in, but anyway, uh, just pretend there’s a stone here, that I’m a muscle man and I can carry a 500-lb stone here, you know. Now, can a stone bring forth water? Is there anything in a stone that has anything to do with water? Nothing. You can heat it, you can freeze it, you can do anything to it, it isn’t going to produce water. So this is a miraculous thing, a supernatural thing. You young believers and teenagers, you’re serving a supernatural God here. This is not a religion. God is a reality, and He’s supernatural.

▶ 8:34 All right, and so it happened. But let me tell you something, this was at Sinai, two and a half months after they came out of Egypt. How many months? Two and a half. And God tested them. He purposely brought them to a place where there was no water, and they failed the test. They rebelled. “You brought us out here to die in the wilderness. Man, we could be back in Egypt eating the leeks and the onions and all the cucumbers and all that stuff.” Yeah, you were slaves back there, and you were complaining there. Ain’t that right? So they failed the test and they rebelled, and then God told Moses, “Smite the rock,” and here come the water. And the Bible says the water came out in a stream, flowed all through the camp, and the livestock and the people ate of fresh water.

▶ 9:27 Wow. Ain’t that beautiful? But you got to remember this: after they left Mount Sinai, they traveled through this wilderness, they went to Kadesh Barnea, that second circle up there, and they sent out spies into the land. The spies came back with a bad report, they wouldn’t go in, so God punished them for disobeying Him and made them wander in the wilderness for 40 years, including the years that they came out, 40 total, to correct them. And everybody that disbelieved God died in the wilderness except Joshua and Caleb, who had a different spirit. See, in other words, not everybody’s punished and corrected when God does His correction. Hallelujah, thank God. Now, but what you got to understand, young believers, is this.

▶ 10:21 Uh, Mark 14:27, Jesus said, “All of you shall be offended because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.’ And after that I’m risen, I will go to you into Galilee.” See, that smiting of the rock, who Paul said was Jesus, Jesus used it to say He was going to die on the cross. See, He was going to be smitten. See, and He used the Scripture that’s in the prophets of the Old Testament. Are you with me? So when Jesus died on the cross, He fulfilled that. He was smitten, and He only died how many times? One time.

▶ 11:01 Okay, now Numbers 20:8: 38 years later, 38 years later. They wandered in this wilderness right here for 38 years, but in the 38th year they came to Kadesh Barnea.

▶ 11:19 And we read that there’s no water. The verse before this, there’s no water. God tested them again and they failed the test. They’re murmuring, complaining, rebellion. “You [unclear] out here, we’re going to die out here, little ones going to die.” Oh man, complain. Yeah, isn’t that American church? Aren’t we just the biggest complainers you ever heard? And we wonder why the unbelievers don’t want Christ. See, we got to pass these tests. And so God told Moses, “Go speak to the rock.” What rock? Is there a new rock? No. Paul says that rock had been following him. How did Paul know that rock followed them? How did he know that? Because he was a student of the Scriptures. Watch this.

▶ 12:14 He said, “You speak to the rock to bring forth his water,” and that word “his” there in the King James really just means “it.” “And you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock to give the congregation drink.” Now, how did Paul know it was the same rock? Deuteronomy 8:15: “Who led you through the great and terrible wilderness.” How many years were they in the wilderness? 40 years. “A place where there were fiery serpents, scorpions, and drought, famine, dry places, no water.” And then he plainly says “where there was no” what? They were 38 years wandering in wilderness where there was not a drop of water. So how did they live for 38 years? The rock that followed them.

▶ 13:13 I tell you, this guy Paul is sharp. And who’s the rock that was with them a whole time? Jesus. See, Paul knew the illustration, Paul knew the example. That rock was Jesus Christ. He’s the cornerstone, He’s the rock of salvation, He’s the rock from which we’re [unclear]. He is the rock. Hallelujah. So Jesus was there with them in the wilderness before He ever became flesh and dwelt amongst us. And He was the rock, a flinty rock. It says that the water flowed out into a stream, giving water to who? 2 and a half million people. Hallelujah. Is that good? Yeah, that’s hot stuff. I like this Paul guy. Now, what does that mean for us today? John 7:38: “He that believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” You see, Jesus lives in us, so the rock is where? In us. And He says out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water. “But this spoke He of the” what? “Spirit, which was to come.” On the day of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Americans argue about it all the time. I just can’t believe that you can argue about something so plain in the Bible and something so wonderful.

▶ 14:44 Jesus, the rock, lives in us, and He wants to pour the waters out of us so we drink and those around us, what? Drink. Are you there? Now, He said, “But the Holy Ghost was not yet given because He was not yet glorified,” or He hadn’t died on the cross yet. And in other words, it had been given, but it hadn’t been given to everyone. Uh, Joel said the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. It hadn’t been done that way yet, but now it’s done, and why do we want to argue about something that’s so wonderful? It just blows my mind away, because some people make a wreck of it does not mean it’s not a truth. Could that be an amen? This is a powerful truth. In John 4:14, “Whosoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him,” be in, in him, and what does it do? “A well of water springing up into” what? “Everlasting life.” It’s an artesian well. It just keeps quenching your thirst, it just keeps empowering you all the time. You don’t have to wait to go to the church in [unclear] and shake. It’s there in the morning when you get up, it’s there at night when you go to bed, and it’s there between, always rising in you.

▶ 16:10 Hallelujah. This is a powerful God we have, church. Powerful. And this Paul knows what he’s talking about. Now he’s setting these guys up. He said this is what God did for Israel, and they all knew that. Now, then in verse 5 he says this: “But with most of them God was not well pleased.” He disapproved of their lifestyle, He disapproved of their attitudes, He disapproved of their decisions. Yes, He was there, and He did great things for them, but that doesn’t mean He approved of what they did. Does he have the Corinthians now? Yeah. Just because you got God in your church, even miracles, and God is saving souls, does not mean God is pleased with everybody and what’s going on. Do we get that, church? Powerful, very powerful. This really helped me out as a young Christian. I can remember when God revealed it to me. It was powerful in my life. He gave me the substance to ignore sin and stick in the church and hang in there.

▶ 17:34 Now, “these things,” for “their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.” Verse 6: “Now these things became” what? “Examples,” a model, “to the intent that we,” us apostles and you church members, Paul says, “us” apostles. He, I’m not an apostle. “Us.” I’m Paul’s microphone, I’m just saying what he said. See, as powerful as us apostles are, these are our examples, and not just us apostles, all of you believers. It’s an example to the intent, to the purpose, that we should not, what? Lust after harmful things as they lusted. Is the American church filled with carried-out lust? Yeah.

▶ 18:29 Are believers getting drunk? Sexual immorality. Homosexuality. Incest. Yes. Are they divided? Are they greedy? Yeah. He’s got them. He showed them God dealt with Israel, now he’s going to show them: cross or no cross, he’s going to correct you. Watch, verse 7, 1 Corinthians 10: “Do not become idolaters, as were some of them.” How many of them? Some, not everybody did it. “As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” Man, they had a big party going on, the beer, the wine, and the music playing, and they had their idol there, that golden calf, and that’s what goes along with all that debauchery: the music and the sexual immorality and, you know, the festival mentality, the big party mentality.

▶ 19:29 Is America in a party mentality? Absolutely. And that’s why he talked about idolatry before sexual immorality, talked about before: “Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and God slew 23,000 in one day.” And he already showed them they were committing sexual immorality earlier. Now he’s showing them there’s a punishment for it if you don’t get it corrected. And this is the disfavor many preachers are doing to American Christians today: through grace and faith you can do anything you want, God loves you, you’re going to heaven, once saved always saved. Listen, folks, we got a God that’s not worthless. He has power, and like a parent loves their children, will discipline them, our God who loves us will correct us. Amen. He doesn’t want us destroying our life in these things. He—