What Does the Bible Say About History?

sometimes when things get hard in our life we look to other things in our lives to deliver us other than God and God alone when we look to our spouse or we look to our job we look to a season of life to say "Hey when this happens all of a sudden things will be better all of a sudden my life will fix itself." And then we still have that emptiness we still have that hurt inside us and God is showing us something greater but today we are continuing our series through the book of first Corinthians and as we've been going through the series we've been asking these questions of that the first church in Corenth in the turn of the century was asking the Apostle Paul and as Paul's asking the or being answering these questions are being asked of him about marriage about kind of the gray areas of life about what are our rights and how does that interact with the gospel today we continue in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 along that uh line of thinking and we're going to ask this question this morning of hey Paul what does the Bible say about history you see history is a complex topic history is one that you know the famous quote of those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it and we see that's actually not something that's far off of what the Bible tells us as well and as we dive into today to our passage what we're going to see is what does the Bible tell us about our spiritual history our spiritual ancestors that came before us and what we do in response to that and here's our biblical answer this morning when we ask what the Bible says about history is that history tells us who God is and what we should do about it history tells us who God is and what we should do about it you see here's what I love as you kind of go throughout history and you go throughout the Bible is we get to see and we get to see God's fingerprints in it we get to see kind of the qualities he has we get to see how his people make mistakes and how God is faithful through it all and here it doesn't stop there because we not only learn what it's about but then we ask "So now what do we do next?" And as we start to go down this topic and as Paul kind of shows us uh where we're going to go with this uh we're going to see how relevant this is for today but before we get into that here I just have a question i just need to understand who I have in the room and and you can raise your hand online if you're here too is who actually finds history interesting be honest okay all right honestly it's about split 50/50 it was split in first service too i had like couples look at each other to make sure they both weren't raising their hands and then they like nodded they're like "Yep that's why we're married." Okay i love history like especially when it's documented through a Netflix minisseries okay um or a movie uh it's it's kind of hard the more you know series or shows you see on things about history cuz usually they're really violent like I didn't realize so many people got their head cut off throughout history okay but watching movies and TV shows if that's any indication it's a lot all right um but I even love listening to podcasts of history currently I'm in an audible or an audio book where I'm in going through a 48hour audio book you heard me right on the rise and fall of the Third Reich who is fascinated right now two people thank you guys you got my back okay um I'm 15 hours in and the war is about to start okay just to give you a little history and here's what I've learned so far hitler was a bad dude right okay anyway who knew but here's as we go into and if you haven't already go ahead and flip to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and we're going to see three biblical principles about history and as we go into this is here's the tricky thing about history is people will look at the Bible sometimes and be like I I don't know if that's super historical i I don't know if this is what I believe in in all of it but let me just tell you is the Bible is the inspired word of God and the Bible is historically accurate uh recently there was some controversy with a a podcaster he doesn't call himself a historian he calls himself a teller of stories as he researches history and and you can have your belief which way about him i'm not endorsing him or anything but Daryl Cooper he kind of made some runs around some because every time you say something stupid you go on five other podcasts to explain the thing you said okay so people got mad about what he said and then he explained it but he had this quote that I thought was so appropriate is he says "History is messy." You see history deals with people like you and like me and the more you learn about history the more messy you find out it is but here as we come to the inspired and infallible word of God what I firmly believe with all my heart what our church preaches and what we believe is that this is historically accurate this is the word of God it can be trusted and it informs how we should live our life as a result and today as we start in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 uh Paul is going to give us a peak into our spiritual history and and here if you just a kind of a side note if you want more research on why we can trust our Bible go see guys like Wesley Huff who given a amazing apologetic that we don't have time to dissect today but as we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 knowing we can trust our history knowing we can trust this spiritual history Paul lays out he begins in verse one and he says this "Now I do not want you to be unaware brothers and sisters that our ancestors were all under the cloud they all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and they all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ nevertheless God was not pleased with most of them since they were struck down in the wilderness here's our first biblical principle that we see from 1 Corinthians chapter 10 is that we need to know our history that we need to know our history paul starts this in verse one he says "For I do not want you to be unaware." He He doesn't want them to be ignorant of their past ignorant of their spiritual history that they have in God of what happened to their spiritual ancestors that he references here and and it's funny i I was thinking about this the other day as I was watching a Sun's game and my kids they'll watch with me in spurts they have a very short attention span so and it's a really depressing to be a Suns depressing year to be a Suns fan so they were watching it though when a commercial comes on and they're like "Skip like it's a live TV bro." He's like "Skip like this isn't how life works okay?" And they're used to streaming there's no commercials or YouTube and they get to skip an ad after 5 seconds and then I said "When I was a kid right drop that." I'm like "We watch commercials when we watch cartoons." And they're like "What?" And I'm like "You just had to sit there." And they would give you commercials usually about action figures so you'd go tell your parents to go buy action figures right and I'm like "But you had to sit there and watch the whole commercial." And they looked at me like I was like a thousand years old like "Dude what are you talking about like that sounds crazy that's not real." And I'm like "Yes it is man it is real." Okay and here Paul is like "Hey I I'm telling you you need to understand your history you need to understand the past of how things were but also how this informs our future." And as he starts this he's going to remind the Corinthian people of four historical facts that they need to know about their God and the first one he starts with is he shows them of God's guidance throughout history look at what he picks up in verse one he says "They were all under the cloud you see what he's referencing there is this references Exodus 13:21 that as Moses used by God freed the Israel people from Egypt they went into the wilderness and by day they were guided by a cloud of there were by a pillar of cloud and by night a pillar of fire but what he's telling them is he's like hey that when God freed the Israelite people he didn't just put them in the wilderness and say good luck the reason they were there for 40 years was not because God had bad GPS it was because they were idiots we'll talk about that more later okay and they made bad choices but they were guided throughout the process and God's guidance was there and here's what we we need to hear from this is we have a God throughout history that has always has has always been there and has never failed to guide his people but not only do we see God's guidance we also see God's deliverance he he continues on and he says "They all pass through the sea." And listen to this says they are all baptized into Moses paul draws a parallel that in the Old Testament just as Moses delivered the Israel people from Egypt from their slavery and delivered them into a new journey that would lead to the promised land they were baptized into the Mosaic law but here Paul is showing us that we on the other side of Jesus we are baptized into a deliverance through the grace of Jesus Christ from our sin in slavery and we're delivered to an earthly journey through this wilderness of our world that will lead to an eternal promised land you see what Paul is saying is he's saying that we are free through Jesus that we are delivered through Jesus just as Moses delivered through the power of God the Israelite people we are delivered from our sin into something greater and as he continues this line he's like "But God doesn't just guide us god doesn't just deliver us from our past and from our sin but we also see God's provisions." He keeps going in verse three and four he says "They all ate the same spiritual food and they all drank the same spiritual drink." Continuing this line of imagery from the Old Testament is the Israelite people when they're in the wilderness they survived off of bread from heaven which was mana in water that sprang from a rock is they didn't survive under their own means they literally survived through the miraculous provision of God and we when we kind of take this to us is we in this spiritual wilderness that we survive off the bread of life which is the body of Jesus Christ in the new wine which is the blood of Jesus Christ that gives us the strength to keep going that's why as a church that we do this monthly here at cross church is we take the Lord's supper we take communion when you drink that little grape juice cuz we're Baptists right and you eat that cracker that's feels like it's been stale for about four years um it's not supposed to be enjoyable right we'll talk about that in 13 but as or later on and he's like as we go through this um he he's saying that the reason that is symbolic of the fact that Jesus through his sacrifice on the cross is all the strength we need to provide us to keep going forward in our life and lastly we need to know our spiritual history not just in God's guidance in God's deliverance in God's provision but in God's wrath in verse 5 he said 'N nevertheless despite all that God had done for him despite God showing clearly who he was God was not pleased with most of them since they were struck down in the wilderness ultimately many in the wilderness in the Old Testament they didn't embrace the guidance the deliverance and the provision that God provided instead they went the opposite way they rebelled and they were stricken down to the point to where only two people who were actually born in Egypt and freed from Egypt and the Israelite people and Caleb and Joshua only two of them ended up seeing the promised land the rest were died off and their children took their place but here's the question is why does Paul bring up these historical events and the reason he does this is because they reveal who God is that God is a God who guides people who delivers them from bondage who provides for their needs and yes even displays his wrath against sin when he needs to one of the parts I love about my job as a pastor is that I get to have coffee and lunch with people a lot and sometimes it's exhausting like you know a lot of people like early on when I do this like my wife will ask me she's like "So what did you do today?" I'm like "I went to lunch and coffee." She's like "Oh yeah did you really work?" I'm like "Yes I worked." Okay um over some energy drinks and Mexican food just like every you know good thing but when I first started in ministry I would I would go to like a meal or coffee with someone and I didn't really know what to do i would just like strike up conversations then it turned into me like listening to all their problems and then trying to fix them on the spot it was like quick therapy with the pastor otherw but the problem was I didn't know what I was doing so I'm probably like giving them terrible advice okay but it's morphed over the years as I've almost been a decade in ministry of me saying like "Dude tell me about your story tell me what God's done in your life let me see your history a little bit let me learn about you." And as I hear people's history about how God's moved them why they've come to church why they say they believe in Jesus or not yet believe in Jesus I get to hear and I get to understand their heart and and then I get to ask them questions like "Well what do you think God has for you next?" And it just sees and I love those conversations and actually I had that last week of of I went to a lunch with a guy and then I went to coffee and he bought my coffee so he needs to drop a ping-pong ball i already told him in between services okay I saw him today uh for treating me later but as I have these conversations it's so awesome because I get to understand people i can just see what God is doing in their life and what he has moving in the future and Paul as he rehashes this history he's like I want you to understand the God that you say you serve i want you to understand the God that you say you worship but he keeps going and building on this in verse 6 he says "Now these things took place as an example for us so that we do not desire evil things as they did." He says "Don't become idolattors as some of them were as is written the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to party let us not commit sexual immorality as some of them did and in a single day 23,000 people died let us not test Christ as some of them did and were destroyed by his snakes and in verse 10 he says "And don't grumble as some of them did and were killed by the destroyer." Here's our second lesson that we see this historical lesson that we get from the Bible and through the Apostle Paul is we not only need to know our history but we need to learn from our history you see this is where it gets tough paul doesn't just say "Hey hey I want you to know i just want you to know what happens and leave it at that but he says "Now I want you to apply it and I want you to learn from it." He says in verse 5 he says "These things took place as an example for us." He's like "You're going to see some bad choices they made and I want you to learn from those bad choices." Had a coach once tell our team that you can either learn from your mistakes or learn from your mentors i think sadly if we're honest and in myself personally I learned from my mistakes a lot more than I want to admit because I'm like ah yeah I know they told me that but I think I got to try it out on my own and it's like they're telling you hey like there's a speed bump coming up and you're like me whatever and then and then another person there's a speed bump coming up and you ignore all of it then you hit the speed bump and you feel like you're going to die right cuz you get a little airborne have your head escape Nope you don't drive that fast um but but you have to it's like sometimes we got to make the mistake on our own instead learning from the mentors that are telling us "Hey something's coming." And Paul here lists five specific sins that the people of Israel committed in the wilderness that brought God's judgment that we can learn from today and as we learn from history here's some things we need to know is what are the things that God punishes the first thing God punishes and we see in this example is God punishes lust he he says here in verse 6 he says they will not he said so that we will not desire evil things as they did paul here is actually alluding to Numbers 11 and in Numbers 11 it talks about how the people in the wilderness they desired the meat of Egypt rather than the bread from heaven think about this for a second symbolically what that means is they were slaves in bondage they were not free in Egypt but when they had freedom and all of a sudden were living in the will of God they were desiring aspects of their past sinful enslaved life and how often do we do the same things as we have this Jesus experience that Jesus saves our life he forgives our sins he shows us something new and greater and better but we still have sometimes that part of us that is desiring the old things of our life how often do we desire evil worldly things rather than just basking in the goodness of our God you see God punishes lust but he also punishes idolatry he he continues on and in verse 7 he says "Don't become idolattors as some of them were." uh inside the wilderness uh the the people of Israel as they started to get worried as they started to get scared as they started to think of and be anxious of what's our next play they started making idols for themselves they made it golden calf that they could worship they were looking to almost Aaron and Moses as idolike figures and sometimes when things get hard in our life we look to other things in our lives to deliver us other than God and God alone when we look to our spouse house or we look to our job we look to a season of life to say "Hey when this happens all of a sudden things will be better all of a sudden my life will fix itself and then we still have that emptiness we still have that hurt inside us." And God is showing us something greater but he continues not only does he punish uh idolatry but he also punishes immorality paul continues on and he says "We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did in the wilderness." What Paul is calling out here is they fed their appetite on sexual immorality instead of a purposeful relationship with God we talked pretty extensively on in chapters 5 6 and 7 over the kind of the holy sexual ethic that the Bible calls us to that is counter to the world but you look at our world today and it celebrates all the wrong things one of the things that's heartbreaking when we look at social media and we look at things around us is things like what is referred to as body count which means how many partners someone has had sexual relations with it's like celebrated as a great thing but here's the thing when you're wanting to spend your life with a spouse with someone you want that to be zero right and you to be the only person and our world is celebrating and here's why they're celebrating it is there's a void in their life as Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has said eternity we've tasted eternity in our hearts and we try to fill it with all the wrong things and Israel had the same problem that our culture has today is we tried to feed our appetite with the wrong things instead of trying to feed it with the eternal God that gives us the one true purpose but God doesn't just punish our idolatry and our immorality and our lust he also punishes testing i I love this he says in verse 9 he says "Let us not test Christ as some of them did." Maybe you hear this and you're like "Dude I'm good." Right like I I'm I'm not lusting i don't have any idols in my room i've been good i'm not struggling with sexual morality but how much do we test God make little deals in our heart and our mind says "God I will follow you if I'll follow you if this job works out i'll follow you if all of a sudden this situation opens up i'll follow you if my kids start behaving i'm going to be like waiting a while if that one is you know contingent upon that that God I'll follow you if and the last thing we see that God punishes in this section through the life of Israel through the history that Paul shows us here is he punishes grumbling he says in verse 10 "And don't grumble as some of them did." You see how often are we upset with the situation we are dealt upset with where God has us now instead of just being grateful for what he is doing and how he has provided and just see the weight in these verses that Paul is like I want you to learn from your mistakes because here was the result of them in verse 8 those who fell into immorality 23,000 people died those who tested Christ they were destroyed by snakes what a terrible way to go right and those who grumbled they're killed by the destroyer paul's like "I'm warning you not to be like these people not to act and fall into the same mistakes they fell into." A couple weeks ago uh my family went to Disneyland and we went to California and we did it before spring break and just let our kids miss a whole week of school like unlike people who are probably watching online you're there now so enjoy the crowds okay um school they'll catch up whatever they're smart uh but anyway so we went to California and it was great the whole trip went well but the last day on Thursday we were planning to go to the beach and in SoCal it's supposed to be sunny and nice all the time instead it rained the whole day and I'm like we're not going to go to the beach in a poncho and be cold okay it really defeats the whole beach vibe so we're looking for things to do to entertain four children in California and and so we we found this thing called the Discovery Cube in Orange County and it was kind of like a children's museum we have a children's museum downtown and I used to actually have annual passes for this when my wife was working and during the summer I would take all four kids there and it was funny i I would take my kids and I would watch as like one toddler had two parents and four grandparents to watch that one kid at the children's museum i'm like "Bro I'll show you how it's done." Okay had my stroller loaded up with lunch that I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before I had like uh I had my fanny pack across so I could put my AirPods and my phone and everything in there and I put an AirPod in listen to a podcast or an Audible and I'm just like "All right check in every hour make sure you're alive." All right and just don't leave any doors just a little more on hands than that but as we went to this discovery cube it was like that times a thousand literally there was a thousand kids there I think on a field trip and it was overwhelming but as we're going through and we're looking at things about dinosaurs and space and recycling and the Anaheim Ducks hosted a whole section to get kids interested in hockey but no one wants to play hockey when it's like 110 out i'm sorry but in in all this is like as we were going through here's what I noticed my kids just wanted all the fun stuff they would run and they'd be like and I'm like "Hey dude you see this like this tells us all about the dinosaur like when it lived when it died like let's read each section like I'm that dad now." Okay and then they're like they're like and they're running past that there's one that gave instructions and like the aerodynamics of how to fold the perfect airplane and and then you could launch them and they just like fold fold fold launch and it goes nowhere i'm like hey let's read the instructions and do this together so I'm like folding it and then I look over I'm like yep my kid's gone all right he don't care and then I I was going to go I thought it was my airplane and then he came back and took it that was rude uh in there but as I was going through and as I'm reading this passage it almost like is the same thing spiritually that we fall into is we can look at all the highlights we can see all the cool stories in the Bible and be like "Oh that happened." The Israelites had front row seats to the some of the amazing miracles in history they saw the plagues of Egypt they saw the parting of the Red Sea they saw mana come from heaven and yet they still turned away from God and Paul is saying loud and clear in this section learn from their mistakes he's saying "See the story read the fine print read the whole plaque that's in front of the story and understand the story what is happening?" Which leads to the final part of this Paul's history lesson where he's going to show us of how we're not repeating those mistakes and he picks up in verse 11 he says "These things happened." I love why did all this happen why do we need to learn from this history why do we need to study history they happened as examples so we can learn from and they have were written for our instruction on whom the ends of the ages have come whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall no temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity but God is faithful he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it here's our third and final history lesson we see from 1 Corinthians 10 is we need to know our history we need to learn from our history and we need to escape the cycle of our history you see Paul is showing us that he's saying all this is here so you don't do the same things they did and here's I think the hardest part about this whole thing called life right is is we learn from our mentors meaning we know our history we know the past and and we try and think we're on the right track but then we mess up and then we're like "Okay now I'm going to learn from my mistake right learn from our own past now I'm going to learn from my mistake and learn from my own history but then you still mess up again." And then we try to learn from more mentors and more of our mistakes but then we keep making the same mistakes over and over again and sometimes it feels like we're trapped in a cycle one of the ministries I love so much that we have at our Phoenix campus is celebrate recovery because what we talk about all the time is how do we break the cycle of not having the same hurts habits and hang-ups constantly trip us up but Paul here gives kind of two thoughts of wisdom here how do we break this cycle how do we stop being stuck in our sin and stuck in this way the first kind of thought he gives of of wisdom here to break the cycle he says God's people are prone to wander i I love this he says these instructions happened to you as examples and they were written for our instruction you see there's a cycle in history that is repeated throughout the Old Testament is God blesses his people but then the people forget about his blessings and when they forget about his blessings they then sin and then God judges their sin so they repent and then he restores them and then it all starts over again and we see this pattern over and over and over again in the new in the Old Testament and Paul warns the Corinthians and us today he said 'Whoever thinks that he stands must be careful not to fall in other words don't be so arrogant enough to think that you're immune to the same mistakes that they were whenever I take my kids into a store uh what I find out is unless the kid is in the cart which usually I'll put my younger ones in the cart until my three-year-old wants to get out of the cart but I'll go to like Sam's Club and unless they're in the cart they're going to wander like I'm like we're I'm like "Dude we're on a mission we're on a time frame." Like "Mom gave me this list i don't even know where anything is in the store." And I usually end up going back and forth right to get it and I'm like "If I don't keep my eye on them they're going to be in the toy section really quick." Okay cuz they find that more exciting than buying chicken what's up with that right but spiritually we are like children that we are prone to wander away from our faith we're prone to wander if we're not intentional away from the purpose that God has for us and into our sin but here's the encouragement that comes with that is God provides a way out here's the good news in verse 13 he says no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to humanity meaning you are not the per first person to face that sin to face that temptation others have been there before and there are some who have failed but there are probably some who have succeeded and then the encouragement to go along with that is he continues in verse 13 he says "But God is faithful and he will not be allow you to be tempted beyond with what you are able but with the temptation he will also provide the way out." You see that is how we escape this cycle by recognizing that our temptations are there that we are prone to wander but then we take the escape route that God provides now you hear all this and you may be in a few different ways you might be one who didn't raise your hand for history so you've been like "Bro this is a lot to go through." Okay you're like "I've been checking out you said history was exciting i didn't see anyone get their head chopped off through a Netflix clip." Okay um do that on your own time just kidding um but here you're like maybe like I I don't know like how do I start to apply this this big long history lesson from the Old Testament that we see from them how do we begin to take this and then live our life out this week and beyond well Paul I think kind of gives us a little bit of it that in the closing of this chapter and as we start chapter 11 in verse 33 the very last verse of chapter 10 Paul as he talks and as he gives this history lesson and then he continues to kind of work in some other arguments he's made throughout this book but in verse 33 he says this "Just as I also try to please everyone in everything not seeking my own benefit but the benefit of many so that they may be saved." Paul is saying "Everything I do the reason I'm giving you these lessons the reason I'm rehashing this history the reason I want you to learn from this history is because I want you to be saved in Jesus Christ i want others to be saved in him i want them to know who Jesus is that he is God and he transforms everything and in verse one he gives us the action step of how we do that he says "Imitate me as I also imitate Christ." You see Paul says "When we attempt to apply this whole answer we attempt to take in all this knowledge for how we are to live as faithful people who know our history who learn from our history and try to break the cycle of history." He tells us in these two verses of here's the answer of how we apply this that we make history when we make known and we imitate Jesus who is the author of history and a little word play here who is really the author of his story that Jesus when we look at him and when we kind of take in this whole thing of rehashing what he has done it comes to who Jesus is and how do we follow him yesterday uh my daughter she's about to turn one years old my youngest on Friday but yesterday we got to have her birthday party and her name is Alice so it was the one time we could do this it was Alice in Wonderland all right some highle punch Punship right there okay is punship a word i don't know english teachers come see me after okay but as we've kind of gone through this she's in a wonderful age where she's starting to imitate what me and my wife do when we smile she smiles when we move our head one way she moves our head one way when we make funny noises with our mouth she's not talking yet but we're like right like she does it back to us and it's so cute and so precious and your heart just melts but I have three other kids that are a little older and what's not so cute and heartmelting is when your kids imitate all that you do like when my three-year-old runs into my son's room and he says "Are you [Music] serious?" Like I think I just said that screaming at my daughter's room right before that right [Music] and here's the thing just as our kids watch us our world is watching us and they're watching us to see who is it we imitate who is it that we act like do we imitate our spiritual ancestors wandering the wilderness who grumbled who tested God who fell into lust and immorality who doubted him and faced his wrath paul's like I'm telling you these stories not so that you repeat them so that you learn from them and you don't do what they do or do we imitate Christ the author of our salvation the author of history who came here as a perfect man and perfect God who lived a perfect life who died on a cross not because he needed to but did so for our sake who rose again so that our sins our past could be wiped away and so that we could have a new history in him we could have an eternal life living in his presence and as we leave these doors my challenge and my prayer for you is you be honest with who you're imitating in your life you be honest with the history you know and that you're mimicking and are you more like the Israelite people are you more like the people of your past that maybe you hold grudges against or you hold anger towards or are you more like the God of second chances who can change everything for you [Music]