9th Sunday after Trinity + 1 Corinthians 10:6-13 + July 28, 2018
In
the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
St.
Paul warns the Corinthians, and all Christians, against the false belief that
Christians can never lose their salvation. The Corinthians had become cocksure
and arrogant. They were baptized. They had the Lord’s Supper. The Lord had
called them out of the darkness of slavery to sin. They imagined themselves to
be secure in God’s grace and free to do as they pleased. The Corinthians had
become secure in their sins and abandoned the life of repentance, imagining
that they could not lose what God has so graciously given them. Paul writes to
correct this impious notion, and we would do well to heed Paul’s warning as
well. We see this deception of the devil today in many who teach and believe
that once a man is saved he will always be saved, regardless of what he does
with the rest of his life. This is a false notion of security. Although God has
promised never to revoke His promises and grace, it is entirely possible for
His Christians to close their ears to His Word, neglect His promises, and fall
away from faith while imaging they stand firm.
This
truth can be seen in the life of the Old Testament church, Israel. In the
verses immediately preceding the Epistle, Paul reminds us that the Lord had
redeemed Israel from the slavery and bondage of Pharaoh. The Lord baptized
Israel by making them pass through the Red Sea. For forty years the Lord fed
Israel with manna and refreshed Israel with water from the rock. The Lord not
only provided for the needs of their body. They “all ate the same spiritual
food, and al drank from the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that
spiritual Rock that followed the, and that rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 6:3-4).
Christ Himself nourished their souls through the Word which He gave to Moses and
the ceremonies which were shadows of His future work. This was done out of
sheer grace and mercy, with no merit on Israel’s part. Israel rejoiced in their
deliverance for Egypt. They gladly marched into the wilderness with their eyes
fixed on the land God had promised them. But that faith lasted about as long as
it took them to get out of town.
Paul
writes, “Now these things become our
examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also
lusted,” says Paul. The lust which consumed Israel was not sexual lust,
although Paul does mention Israel’s fornication with the Moabite women in which
they worshiped Moab’s idol. Lust is any inordinate desire, usually directed at
something the Lord hasn’t given you. It may very well be for another man’s
wife. But it includes the desire for creature comforts and worldly pleasures.
Israel lusted after meat. They grew tired of the manna the Lord miraculously
provided six days a week for them. They grew discontent with what God gave them.
They loathed the miraculous manna. They complained and the Lord answered them by
giving them quail to eat. Instead of thanking God for His provision and asking
His forgiveness for their lust, they devoured the new food. This aroused the
Lord’s anger. He sent a plague which killed a multitude. Their faith did not
endure because they gave into the temptation of lust.
Paul
says these baptized children of God became idolaters as well. You recall how
Israel convinced Aaron, Moses’ brother, to fashion a calf from gold while Moses
was gone forty days on the top of Mt. Sinai. Paul quotes Moses from Exodus 32:6
when He rights that “the people sat down
to eat and drink and rose up to play.” It hadn’t been that long since they
had been baptized in the Red Sea and delivered from Pharaoh’s slavery. Yet
there they were at the base of Sinai, manufacturing a golden god to worship and
praise for their deliverance. The great sin of idolatry happens whenever anyone
ascribes all good things to someone or something other than the true God. For
this, the Lord had Moses grind the golden calf into a fine powder and put it in
Israel’s drinking water so that they would taste the bitterness of their
idolatry and repent of it. Years later they committed fornication with the
woman of Moab, which was part of the way their god, Baal-Peor, was worshiped.
For their sexual immorality “in one day
twenty-three thousand fell.”
Paul
even says they tempted Christ himself, who was the spiritual rock that followed
them in the desert. They tempted Christ by complaining against His called
servant, Moses. They complained that God was not good in bringing them out of
Egypt. They accused God of evil, saying that He had brought them out of Egypt
into the wilderness to die. For this, the Lord sent fiery serpents among them
whose bite killed. When they repented Moses erected a bronze serpent on a pole.
They had tempted Christ’s goodness, so Christ forced them to look upon a
picture of Himself so that they learned that He is truly good to them and not
evil. Countless times Israel complained in this way. Of the generation that
left Egypt and were baptized in the Red Sea, only two entered the Promised
Land, Joshua and Caleb. All Israel had begun in faith. Only two endured unto
the end.
Christ
says in Matthew 24:13, “He who endures
to the end shall be saved,” not, “He who is starts off well shall be saved.”
Christ calls us to endure the temptations of the devil in order to test us as
He tested Israel in the wilderness. Christ wants us not only to begin well but to
finish steadfast in the true faith. Paul writes, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” Don’t
fall into carnal security so that you imagine that once you have been saved by
God’s grace it doesn’t matter what you do with the rest of your days. Don’t
imagine that you can, like Israel, neglect daily repentance and become
comfortable in your sins. Don’t imagine that you can despise God’s Word,
thinking little of it, so that you put off hearing it, reading it, and learning
it. For “Blessed are those who hear the word
of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28). Christ has called you out of the slavery
of sin and graciously forgives all your sins. He has baptized you in water
which He combined with His word of promise so that you are God’s own dear
child. He feeds you with this spiritual food, His very body and blood. He does
not want you to neglect these things as Israel did so that you lust after
things He has not given you, complain and tempt Christ’s goodness, and fashion
an idol in your heart which you look to for every good thing. He wants you to
endure, and the only way you can endure is by clinging steadfastly to His
Word or repentance and faith.
And
although many temptations are set around you as snares and traps, your Lord
offers you help so that you do not fall. Today’s reading ends with a word of
encouragement and promise. “No
temptation has overtaken you except such as is command to man; but God is
faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but
with the temptation will also make the way of escape., that you may be able to
bear it.” The temptations to lust, to look elsewhere for every good thing,
to sexual immorality, to tempt Christ through unbelief, and to complain about
what God gives, all these are common to all mankind. But your Lord is faithful.
He reduces the power of your temptations so that they do not exceed your
ability even as He provides an escape from the temptation, which is the ability
to bear it until it passes. He strengthens you through His Word which He plants
in your hearts and calls to your mind in temptation, so that you do not go the
way of ancient Israel and fall into false security, but that you endure to the
end and receive the salvation of your souls, the promised land of everlasting life.
In
the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.