Focus on the Promised Land

Ancient Israelites, at this time, during their experience of the days of the living bread, they were leaving Egypt. And it says they went out with a high hand. At the night that we much observed, we were over at the piers' house, and every time Mrs. Peir came out with a new platter of meat, she said they came out with a high hand. I think she was slaying cattle the whole night. It was just amazing. They came out with a high hand.

Now, imagine millions of people, all these little children, everything they owned in wagons and on their backs, and millions of animals, and they're leaving Egypt. And it's hard for us to imagine what Egypt was like. I mean, at that time period, it was by far the most sophisticated civilization on earth. And they're leaving and heading towards, they don't know what. Most of them had never left the Nile. They had never left the Nile.

They had never left the Delta, which was much larger than it is now. It was much wider, but Egypt was a huge area. Like I mentioned before, we don't look at Egypt this way now, but the reason the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans all conquered Egypt was it was so fertile, and that land along the Nile was so wide at the time, it was the breadbasket of the world. It was where they could grow more wheat than Europe.

They grew more wheat in Egypt than they did in Italy. And it was the breadbasket of the world. So, I mean, it's hard for us to imagine what they were leaving and where they were going. They had no idea. Now, my personality being the way it is, I'd have been moving along with this crowd, just running up to anybody who would listen to me and say, how far is this place? Anybody know without here? What are we going to eat?

I'd have been really concerned about that. What are we going to drink? How do we know the direction? Does anybody know where they're really going? But they're just happy. They're leaving. They're getting out of slavery. God had just destroyed Egypt. And what God did next is the exact opposite of what you would think He would do.

What I want to do today is I'm going to basically go back and forth to a number of scriptures, but basically we're going to look at some Old Testament scriptures and verses about their experience of leaving Egypt and going through the Red Sea. And then I'm going to go to where the Apostle Paul talks about these experiences, and we're going to look at the lessons they learned from the experience, or what the Israelites were supposed to learn, and then we're going to go and say how Paul uses this to teach the church.

Paul uses these exact same experiences and says, let's look at those as the church. We're going to have two core passages today, and a few others we'll go back and forth to, to look at and learn and study at this time. We're supposed to rehearse these things. Not everything new to give you today. Not only when the Holy Days come up, we're rehearsing things. We're supposed to. We're supposed to remember there's a reason for this. There's a reason these Holy Days come around every year. It's like there's a reason the Sabbath happens once a week.

It's part of the cycle of how we're supposed to relate to God. So let's go to Exodus 13. Exodus 13. And we'll start in verse 17. Now, when it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go. Remember, on the first day of Unleavened Bread, I talked about Pharaoh's hard heart, what kind of man he truly was. And being the man that he was, he felt beat, but he still couldn't accept defeat. So when it came to pass, when Pharaoh let the people go, that God did not lead them by the way of the land of Philistines, although that was near.

For God said, less perhaps the people changed their minds when they see war and returned to Egypt. The Philistines had all up and down along the coastline of the Mediterranean. They had outposts because they were seafaring people. They controlled the road that went along the coast. That coast road was the main way that goods were traded back and forth across the world. If you headed up through the land of Canaan, where there were lots of prosperous cities, of course at that time that was a very productive land. Then you go up through Babylon and Assyria and up through where the Hittites were. There were other huge civilizations all along the Fertile Crescent.

But at the far end was Egypt, the great empire. There was that road that ran along the coast, and who controlled that road controlled world trade. Now, of course, I guess the good of the Philistines are due, which I hate to do. From a cardinal viewpoint, would you want two to three million people, and probably, who knows, ten million animals running through your backyard? They're looking at something. They're going to devastate our land, kill our people. It would take years to recover from those people coming through here. The guy says, I'm not going to send them there. God led the people around by the way of the wilderness, the Red Sea. The children of Israel went up and orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had placed the children of Israel under a solemn oath, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here with you. God had told Joseph, there's a time I'll bring you back, your descendants out of Egypt. Joseph said, well, then my descendants will bring my bones with me. They did. They took their journey from Sukkoth and camped in Ethem at the edge of the wilderness. The Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light. So it has to go by day and night. And he did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people. Now, that's a very important point. When we get to the New Testament, we're going to talk about that. So visualize these people leaving. There's that big pillar of cloud that day.

It's interesting, according to, when you look at the Talmud or even the Sun Sino-Jewish commentary of the Bible, they have all these Jewish traditions they add. And you don't know what's true or what's not true. But one of the things that, according to Jewish tradition, was the cloud would cast a shadow that would keep the Israelites from having the full heat of the sun on them during the day. Who knows if that's true or not. Having a supernatural cloud lead you is enough of a miracle. If it's giving you shade, that's even more amazing.

So they're seeing this. They're moving. They're leaving. Let's look at Chapter 14.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and He tells them where to camp, opposite the sea. Now, at this point, me being my personality, I've been looking around and saying, This is not good. There's mountains on this side, mountains on this side, and Egypt's behind me, and there's a big giant sea in front of me. Now, remember, they probably did not know that red sea was there. These weren't, you know, the Israelites had not gone through all the geometry classes, mathematic classes. I mean, the Egyptians were highly educated people. These were slaves. They did not know how far it was the Canaan, the Promised Slave. They did not know what was between them and there. They just knew, they were going, and this is great. Now they're looking at a sea, a huge body of water. It's like, okay, we camped here. Are boats coming? What are we supposed to do now? Verse 3, For the Pharaoh will say to the children of Israel, They are bewildered by the land, the wilderness has closed them in. Pharaoh looks at Moses and says, You talk about a bad general. This is an impossible place to put a people. There's not enough food and water to feed these people. Strategically, tactically, he's doomed. I finally can get my revenge. Verse 4, That I will harden Pharaoh's hearts. Now remember we talked about why God hardened Pharaoh's heart. It wasn't because he was a good man. It's because he already had a hard heart. God says, I'll do this one more time. I will harden Pharaoh's heart so that he will pursue them. And I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over his army, that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord, and they did so. Now this is our first lesson we have to understand.

Sometimes, as the chosen people of God, God is going to put you in an impossible situation to prove something to somebody else. See, Pharaoh still didn't accept that God was the one who had done these things to his kingdom. You know, a few days had gone by, the Israelites had left, and he's probably thinking, you know what? The Nile isn't read anymore. I think that God didn't have any power to make the Nile rent all the time. Our gods won. The frogs eventually went away. The hail and the fire went away. The darkness went away. You know, he couldn't sustain it. He killed all the first more, but he left the rest of us. And now, those people are floundering around in a situation where they're all going to die within a week. And I have my chance for revenge. He still didn't believe that God was greater than him. He's a god, right? Pharaoh's a god. He still didn't believe it.

And God says, I'm going to show you one more time. First lesson we learned from this is God's people, there are times God will lead us into impossible situations to prove who He is, to prove who He is, because we won't be able to fix it. In your life, there will come some times. It's just going to happen. Sometime in your life, you're going to be in an impossible situation where God brought you there to prove who He is. And how do we handle that? How do they handle that? Of course, Pharaoh pursues them.

He's a very predictable man. Verse 10, And then Pharaoh drew near, and the children of Israel lifted their eyes and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. Then they said to Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness?

Why have you so dealt with us to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. That's easy to criticize the Israelites for this approach, because they had just seen everything that God had done.

But remember, all their training, all their life, had taught them Egyptian solutions to life's problems. So God had only been involved in their life for a very short period of time.

I know there are great miracles, there are a lot of visible things, but God had only been involved in their life for what? A couple of weeks? That's it! All their lives, their training said, Egyptian solutions to life's problems. All your life you were taught, and you're still being taught, that the solutions this world offers us are the solutions to life's problems.

And you know what? To a certain degree, every one of us still believe that. The solutions to life's problems are our spiritual Egypt's training that we have received. So sometimes, don't be so hard on these people. So we struggle with this. Yes, yes, yes, I know the problem, I know the solution to this. I know the solution is, I don't want to lose my job because of the Sabbath, so I'll go ahead and work with the Sabbath.

I know the solution to the problem is, I really can't afford to tithe, so I'll keep my first tithe, but I won't keep my second tithe, and God won't have to get me to the East Tabernacles, right? So I'll trust in God. I know the solution to the problem is, I really can't afford to tithe, so I'll keep my first tithe, but I won't keep my second tithe, and God won't have to get me to the East Tabernacles, right? So I'll trust in God. That's an Egyptian solution to the problem. You know, my marriage, I don't have a solution to this, I don't have a reason for this, I'll just divorce my husband or wife.

That's an Egyptian solution to the problem. We still have a lot of Egyptian solutions in our minds, and we still keep applying them. These people, when faced with their first real problem, said, we know that environment. Remember, they lived in a very opulent environment. To be a slave in Egypt was better than to die of starvation in the desert.

Okay? I mean, if you had to choose between the two, most people would choose being a slave in Egypt. And that's what they thought they were facing. I find it interesting, once again, the Sosino commentary, the Jewish tradition says that what was happening here was there was a contingent that was getting people stirred up and saying, let's go and surrender to the Egyptians. There was another contingent saying, no, let's form an army and fight them. Now, you've got to remember, they're facing a mechanized army. I mean, the only way you can put this into modern terms is you're a guy standing there.

You don't even have a modern rifle. You've got a shotgun, and you're facing a tank. Okay? They're facing chariots. That's what they're facing. Mountains on both sides, the seat of your back, a mechanized army in front of you, and I got a club.

Now, there's a certain group, just a personality to why it's saying, let's go take them on. According to the Jewish tradition, there's another group that's saying, let's just go jump in the sea and drown ourselves. I figured that was the Jewish contingent. You know, probably scream around, holler and yell, let's go just go and drown ourselves. There is a say that. That's what they did at Masada, remember? They all committed massive suicide. We're not going to go back into slavery to the Romans. We'll kill ourselves first. There was a group that said, it's better to die, so let's go drown ourselves. And in the midst of this chaos, and you can imagine the chaos and the fear, people realized, we're in an impossible situation. While they were in Egypt, God always protected them. Ha ha, the Egyptians are getting it. We're not.

There is nothing here to help them. Not only will many times our first reaction be an Egyptian, a spiritual Egyptian answer to a problem, there will always be someone telling us that that's the answer to the problem.

There's always somebody saying, don't do it that way, that doesn't make any sense, that's stupid. You know, remember as people telling you, you can't give up Christmas? It'll just destroy your children. Remember that? That's an Egyptian solution to a problem. Oh, I know it's wrong, but I wouldn't do that to my children. I've heard people say that.

There will always be somebody to tell you that way works. So what were they supposed to do? Now, there's two things that happened next that are very interesting. I've talked about these before, usually about this time of year.

But let's look at them again. Verse 13.

And Moses said to the people, do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, but He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians, whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. And the Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.

There are times in life when you and I must stand still, and that's the hardest thing to do. There are times in life where things will be happening to you, things will be happening around you, and many times we're in a panic mode.

Panic mode, because things aren't happening the way we thought. God isn't working out. Where is God? This isn't good. And at that point, when you never know what to do, I can remember my dad teaching me that, when you don't know what to do, stand still and wait for God.

And that goes against everything that screams in our brains. Stand still and wait for God. How long? Two answers to the problem. But why do you take four to five minutes? What will I do? Well, let's see. I'm looking at the sun, I'm looking at my sundial. Ancient is ancient Egypt, okay? Looking at my sundial, and I've got about fifteen minutes before those chariots get here. How long am I supposed to stand still? How long are we supposed to stand still? Until the answers.

This is so hard. This is a lesson as a people this generation of Israelites never learned.

Whenever there was a problem, and they couldn't solve it, whenever there was conflict, and they couldn't solve it, whenever there was lack of food or lack of comfort, and they couldn't solve it, they frantically responded.

In other words, whenever you're having an emotional response, stand still.

You know what? We talked about that last Sabbath, right? When I started to go through how we respond to events, we'll be talking a little bit more about that in other sermons coming up. But how do we respond to events? Our emotional response is almost always wrong.

So when you're having an emotional response, a negative emotional response especially, stop!

Stand still. God, what am I supposed to do? And wait for the answer. It's never easy. Now, there's an example in the Bible. I was going to take the time to go there, but let's go ahead. Just take a few minutes. We'll come back here in a minute to access. Let's go to 1 Samuel 13. I picked on Saul last Sabbath. I'll pick on Saul a little more. But I find Saul is just a tragic figure to me because he had everything he needed and he failed. He had everything he needed to be a success and he failed. Here he is presented with a problem. Saul reigned 1 year over... or reigned 1 year, when he had reigned 2 years over Israel. Saul chose for himself 3,000 men in Israel. 2,000 were with Saul and Nickmash in the mountains of Beth-el. 1,000 were with Jonathan, who is his son, and Gibeah, a Benjamin. The rest of the people he sent away, every man to his tent. Now, you read what happens here. Jonathan attacks a garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines always bug them. They're always bothering them. They're always raiding Israel. So, Jonathan, who is the son of the king, he goes out and he raids a garrison, probably kills a bunch of guys, burns down the garrison or whatever. I mean, they just took the big bully and punched him in the nose. Now, I want you to remember, he has 3,000 men. That's what he's got. What he did expect... Now, the Philistines were... they were like ancient Greece. They were city-states.

Sort of loosely affiliated. They'd pick on one. You know, maybe the men of that city would come out and you'd have to fight them. They did something they didn't expect. They got all the Philistine city-states together and said, that's it. We're coming after you. All of us.

Look what it says in verse 5. When the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel, 30,000 chariots. He got 3,000 men. 6,000 horsemen. And the people was the sand which was on the seashort in multitude. And the infantry, they didn't even bother to count them. The infantry contingent was much, much larger than your chariot and cavalry contingents. And it's probably safe to say there's 100,000 men here. Paul saw at this point as saying, let's have a recount, guys. One, two, three, four. He comes in with 3,000 no matter what. Well, then it starts getting smaller.

Verse 6 says, then the men of Israel saw that they were in danger, for the people were distressed. That's one of the, I think, the greatest, you know, understatements in the Bible. Then the people hid in caves and in thickets and rocks and holes and in pits.

The some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and the people followed him trembling. His army, his resources are just wasting away. He'd punched the bully in the nose, and they never expected the bully to come after him. Now, there's only one chance he has, and that's God. And you know what God told him to do? Stand still. Stand still. Wait a minute. I had 3,000 men. I got 2,700. Up. I got 2,500. These people are running away. The ones I have are going to be no good in a fight.

As soon as the Philistines show up, they're running as fast as they can. What am I going to do? Some historians believe, too, at this point, the Philistines may have been in the early Iron Age, and the Israelites may have still been in the early Bronze Age. If that's true, technologically, they were still on class. They were in real trouble. You take an iron sword and you hit a bronze sword about two or three times, guess what happens to that bronze sword?

It just cracks. They're not sure when they all entered into the Iron Age, but it's possible the Israelites were lagging behind. In other words, he knows only God can help him. And God's answer, he didn't say, go back to Jerusalem. He said, stand still. We know that because it says here, verse 8, Then he waited seven days according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gogel, and the people were scattered from him. So Saul said, bring a burnt offering and a peace offering here to me, and he offered the burnt offering.

Now, it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came, and Saul went out to greet him, meeting him, saying, what have you done? Saul said, I saw that the people were scattered from him, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and the Philistines gathered together at Micmash.

And I said, the Philistines will now come down upon me at Gogel, and I have not made supplication to the Lord. Therefore, I felt compelled and offered a burnt offering. Now, if you read through that, it seems like, well, you waited more than seven days. But he must not have, because look at what Saul, Samuel, says. Samuel says, Saul, you have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, but now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.

Samuel says, no, you waited one day and two days and three days and four days. Now, think of Saul pulling his men together every day. They're coming out, and they know. They're getting reports. They're coming in. They're sending out runners and spies, and they're coming in every day with reports. And they're saying, Gath sent ten thousand men. This city sent five thousand men. They have chariots. How many? We counted 2,700. Then they come back the next day. There's now 15,000, and they come back the next day. And they're getting their reports in, and he says, he gets up every morning, looks out and says, how many men deserted last night?

Two hundred. He's waiting. He's standing still. And the sixth day comes, and the seventh day comes. And twelve hours of the seventh day goes by, and fifteen hours of the seventh day goes by. And when Samu says, you didn't follow the command, what that means is, it must have been right up at the end of the seventh day.

He had sent out runners, and you see Samu. Samu is not coming. The sun is going to set. He said, wait seven days. I better do this. Remember, people have a mis... They misunderstand the Old Testament structure, especially during the time of Judges, that God...

the government that God gave them. The king did not have total power in Israel. You know, kings in Pharaoh had total power because he was a god. I mean, declared himself a god. In Israel, the king didn't have total power. He shared that power with the high priest. There were things he could not do. No, there were things the high priest could not do. One of the things the king could not do is offer the sacrifices that only the high priest could do.

He overstepped his bounds here. Only Samuel could do this. Only Samuel could. And Samuel said, all he had to do was wait another, what, ten minutes? It was real close. How long do you stand and wait? For me, this is very hard. Standing still and waiting for God is very hard. So, guess what happens to me a lot in life? A lot of problems where I have to stand still and wait. Ah, come on, God, just let me at it.

No. Stand still and wait, and I will give you the answer. I got the answer. I got the answer. No, you don't. Just stand still and wait. But if you let me fix it, yeah, you'll make a mess of it. Stand still and wait. I talked about self-talk last time. These are the conversations I have, right? But God, stand still and wait. So, I understand Saul. People at this point really put down Saul. I understand Saul.

I understand how long am I supposed to stand still and wait? There's me and Jonathan left. Everybody else ran away. I'm facing 100,000 men without God. I want God with me, so I will do the sacrifice. But he did not have the right, the legal right, to do the sacrifice. And had it. Stand still and wait. Important lesson. Now, let's go back to Exodus, and then we're going to go to the New Testament. One more verse. Exodus 15. So, they're standing still and waiting. Now, Moses has the crowd calm down. Now, if you can imagine this scene, you've got people who wanted to go fight them. You had people who wanted to go just surrender. You had people that wanted to kill Moses. You know, he's our problem. Let's kill him. He had people wanting to go jump on the scene and drown themselves. And he finally has millions of people calm down. Okay, stand still. We're waiting. Now, you can hear in the distance, you know, the Egyptian trumpets. I imagine you can hear the rumbling. I mean, I can't imagine what 600 chariots and thousands of horses. I mean, the rumble of this. And you've got marching soldiers, and they can hear this. They can see the dust. And everybody's standing still. And God leans over to Moses, and the listeners in here is here, and the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? Moses is just praying his heart out, okay, to this point. Everybody's calmed down. Everybody's standing still. And he says, Moses, what are you doing? Well, I got him standing still. But see, God had already given him instructions. There's a time to stand still when you get the instructions moved.

When you get the instructions, do. He says, Why do you cry out to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. So remember what go forward meant? Why are you going to march towards the water? I guess the faction that wanted to drown themselves said, Well, Moses is on our side. We're all just going to go like lemmings, you know, or we're just going to drown ourselves. We know what happened.

God opened that sea for them to go through. God provided a solution that they did not have any idea how the problem could be solved. What I find interesting here is they had to march towards the sea before it was open. We're all calm now. We're not dealing with this emotionally. We're afraid. But God's with us. What do we do, Moses? March towards the sea. Okay. And they did. You ever notice it is not called... There's a book in the Bible, and it is not called the ideas of the apostles or the philosophies of the apostles.

It's not even called the teachings of the apostles. It's called the acts of the apostles, the actions of the apostles. He said, do, and they did. But I want you to notice what was the first thing He told them? He told them, after His resurrection, go the days of the loving bread. Stand still, wait, and I will stand the Holy Spirit. You notice He didn't tell them when? We stood by. They didn't know it was coming on Pentecost. It seems easy for you and I to look back and say, well, that's pretty easy.

You know, wait 50 days, and the Holy Spirit... Holy Spirit, because they didn't know that. Stand still and wait. How long do we wait? Do I give you an answer? They had to get pretty frustrated towards the end of that time period. What do you think is going to happen? What's going to happen when it does? How will we know when it happens? I don't know. So they just hung out and just slipped, waiting. They had to stand still and wait.

What happened the moment they received the Holy Spirit? They started doing. They got the instructions. They worked. They did. Two great lessons here. Stand still and wait. When you get the instructions, do. Do not expect immediate action. Now let's go look at a passage in the New Testament that refers back to this time in Israel's history. 1 Corinthians 10. This is a very important passage for a number of reasons. The first verse is very important in understanding Paul's viewpoint.

I'm going to show you how Paul comes to some conclusions. There are statements made in 1 Corinthians 10 that many Bible commentaries were saying, We have no idea how Paul came up with this conclusion. How did he come up with this conclusion? Why does he say what he does? If you read all of Paul's writings and put them together, you start to understand Paul's thought process, where God is taking him in this.

Look at verse 1. Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud all passed through the sea. I want you to stop and think about that a minute. All our fathers... Paul, of course, is an Israelite, right, from the tribe of Daniel. And he says, All of our fathers, who would have counted as his fathers? Why, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, those who went through the Red Sea, they were all his fathers.

They were his descendants. Who's he writing to? A bunch of Gentiles. The Church of Corinth is not a Jewish church. The Church of Corinth is a Greek church. In fact, how Greek is it? The entire book that we call 1 Corinthians is Paul telling them, Stop being so Greek! Stop worshiping idols! There were no Jews worshiping idols, right? Stop going to temple prostitutes.

There were no Jews going to temple prostitutes. Stop eating meat offered idols. There were none of them doing that. Everything in his book is telling them to stop being Greek pagans. And he tells them, They're your fathers, too. Now, what this is, Paul believes that there is an enormous continuity between all the New Testaments. The exact opposite of what evangelical Christians believe.

They believe that there's no continuity, there's very little continuity between all the New Testaments. Paul tells a group of Greeks who, for the most part, believe that Jews are nuts, okay? They didn't have a high opinion of Jews at this time in Greece. They needed the Romans at times, right? They would just cause trouble all the time, and they'd deny all the gods what's wrong with them. You know, paganism was easy. Live and let live. You can believe whatever you want.

It doesn't matter. And these people kept saying, Everybody's wrong with us. Everybody's wrong with us. That's why people got mad at them. And the Greeks are saying, But you're not very good philosophers. You know, we're a lot wiser than you are. And he tells them, These are your fathers, too. Once you come into the church, you're a part of this continuing story that starts with Adam and Eve. It goes through Abraham, it goes through the entire Old Testament, comes up now to where we are today. Now, you and I also have to realize something else. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, most of what we call the New Testament wasn't even written yet.

He's using the Old Testament to teach Gentiles about Jesus Christ. And that's what this passage does. It's amazing. He's teaching Gentiles about Jesus Christ by using the book of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It's an amazing passage. Verse 2, All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and they ate the same spiritual food. Now, I want to stop here, because we know, well, they went through the sea as sort of a type of baptism. But you know what it says here, they were baptized into Moses in the sea and in the fire and in the pillar of smoke or the cloud.

And in spiritual food that they ate, God gave them physical food. He also gave them the Ten Commandments. He gave them spiritual food. He gave them the law. They were baptized into Moses. This is very important. And it's a Pauline thought process. Baptism means immersion, right? So we call it water baptism.

If you remove water from it, you could say oil immersion. I mean, if someone was just dipped in oil. You could say, you know, you could say to someone who is buried in dirt that they're baptized by dirt. Immersion, I mean, that's what it means. Baptism is immersion. So we know what water baptism is. Jesus said in one of the Gospels that He was going to be baptized in His sufferings.

He was going to be immersed in His sufferings. Paul says here now, understand, as these people went through the sea, as God led them, they became immersed into Moses. Moses became their teacher, and they were immersed in everything that He taught.

You understand what he's saying? They were immersed into Moses. Moses became their leader. He became the lawgiver. He's the one that God spoke through.

Then verse 4, And all drank the same spiritual food, verse 4, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. I've looked this up. I've tried to figure out what it says in the Greek. But you know what it says? The rock was the Messiah. The rock was the Christ.

One of the greatest truths that Paul believed in the pre-existence of Jesus Christ.

Who was with these people? The Messiah. He's talking to a Gentile group of people, and He's proving to them that Jesus pre-existed because of the one that became Jesus who led them through the sea.

It's an amazing argument. You wouldn't think about it until you realize who He's talking to.

He's using the Old Testament. He's immersing them in the Old Testament, is what He's doing. He's immersing them into it.

He said, But most of them, God was not well pleased, for the bodies were scattered in the desert. Now I'm going to stop here a minute and go back and show you how Paul can put things together.

You can leave a marker here. Let's go back to Deuteronomy 18.

He said, They were immersed into Moses.

This is why scholars have trouble with this. How did He come up with that concept?

They were immersed into Moses. Moses taught them. Moses gave them the law. Everything about them came from Moses.

Even in the Jewish world today, except maybe for Abraham, there is no greater figure than Moses.

They're immersed into Moses. They argue the law all the time. They're immersed into His teachings. No matter what Jewish sect you belong to, you believe that Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy is the most important part of the Bible. They all believe that.

That everything has to be defined and interpreted through those five books. Why? Because they were given to God through Moses.

Let's start in verse 15.

The Lord your God, now remember this is Moses talking, will rise up for you a prophet like me, from your midst, from your brother, and him you shall hear. He says there's going to come another prophet like me who gives the law, who God gives you the truth through, and you must hear this one. This one's greater than I am.

According to all you desire to the Lord your God in Horeb and the day of assembly saying, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or let me see this great fire any more or less I die. Now, I want you to think about that again, too.

They stood before Mount Sinai, and God thundered out the Ten Commandments. See, we think about them receiving the two tables of stone with the Ten Commandments on it, right? But they heard it first.

They saw a mountain that was shaking. They saw fire, boiling fire on top of it, and smoke. And they heard a voice that said, thou shalt have no other gods before me. And it scared them, and they said, this will kill us.

This we will die. This being is so great we will die. So what we need is an intercessor. Moses, will you go to Him for us? Remember what they asked? Will you go intercede for us? Will you stand between us and the greatness of God? And it's interesting because, verse 17, and the Lord said to me, what they have spoken is good. Isn't it good, Moses? Let's use a you and I talk. They became immersed in the Moses. Why? Because Moses, the one who came down and said, here it is, this is where God wanted you to know. And I'm going to have to teach you this. God's going to work through me, and I will teach you.

But verse 18 says, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among your brethren, that will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks to my name, I will require it of him. Moses said, there's coming another prophet like me. He's going to come from Israel. But this prophet, when he speaks, if you do not listen, God will judge you. Now, how was that prophecy applied in the New Testament?

Acts 3, Mr. Dove, read verse 19, so let's start with verse 19. Acts 3.

I'm reading, of course, from the new King James, a little different translation than he was reading from, but same meaning, Acts 3.19. Are you all still with me here? Okay. I've got to make sure I go this a while, and I lose you. I know. And I'm just talking to myself, which I can go home and talk to myself. I do it all the time.

Sometimes I just need an Amen. No, no, don't.

Acts 3.19. Breaking in the middle of Peter's speeches. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, that He may send Jesus Christ to His priests to you before, so He could bring the Messiah, but He didn't just say the Christ, okay, the Messiah. He said Jesus Christ. Because this whole argument of chapter 3 is, the Messiah is supposed to come, and guess what, folks? He already came. And you missed Him, and this Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. So He says, you've been told the prophets, all of them came, and they said that the Messiah was going to come.

Verse 21, Whom heaven must receive till the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. And now He says, now let me give you the number one prophecy about this. From Moses truly said to the fathers, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you.

And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. Can we just read that?

He goes back to Deuteronomy and He says, you want to know, you want to know about the Messiah. We're waiting for Him to come, but Moses told us He would be like one of us. Who was Jesus of Nazareth? He was like one of us.

And that's where He starts and He's proven that Jesus was the Messiah.

They were immersed in the Moses. By the way, I have to say this. There is a minister out there who says that Deuteronomy 18 applies to Him.

That is heresy.

It's simple heresy. It applies to Jesus Christ.

For any man to say it applies to Him is heresy.

That's all I'm going to say. Galatians 3. Galatians chapter 3.

Now, I'm showing you how Paul goes to... He takes things. He takes ideas. He takes ideas and He produces statements. And you think how in the world did He come to that statement? They were immersed into Moses. And Moses said, okay, I teach you. God speaks to me. I teach you. God tells me. I tell you. I am your teacher. You are immersed into me. Now, Moses didn't say that. Paul said it. But Moses would have said, I'm your teacher. Paul says, they went through the sea. They were immersed into Moses.

He didn't say they were immersed into the sea. Now, what does he say here? Verse 27. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. As many of you that were immersed into Christ It's the same phrase. You were immersed. They were immersed into Moses. He was their teacher. He was the one where they received the word of God from. You and I, we see the importance of Moses, but who are we immersed into? When you were immersed underwater, you were not immersed. We didn't baptize you in the name of Moses, did we?

When you came out and hands were laid on, you received God's Spirit. You were immersed into Christ. It ties into the Holy Days. Jesus sat down with His disciples, and we did this at the Passover, and He said, Eat this bread and drink this one. Right? This is me. You're taking me into you. And all week long, what have we done? All week long, we have removed leavening and taken in the 11 bread of sincerity and truth, taken in Jesus Christ.

We are immersed in Christ. So, when people say, How did, like I said, many, many, many commentators say, How did Paul come up with an idea they were immersed in Moses? This isn't odd. He was also teaching that we're immersed. They were immersed in Moses. We are immersed into Christ. He becomes our complete teacher. In fact, Jesus said He came to take the law of Moses and expand it. He didn't come to do away with it. He expanded it. He made up more binding upon His followers.

So, let's go back to 1 Corinthians 10 now and finish up this passage. 1 Corinthians 10. These verses here in 1 Corinthians 10 are amazing in understanding what Paul is telling these people. Verse 5, he says, This hadn't been their fathers until they showed up at church.

Their fathers were Plato and Socrates. And Aristotle. They had a different set of fathers. He said, Now, your fathers are these people, and we need to learn from these people. We need to go back and understand what happened. For our example...

So, verse 6, these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things that they also lusted. He gets four things here. 1 Corinthians 10. They kept wanting what God wasn't going to give them. He was going to give them something greater. They wanted meat. He was going to give them a land where they could grow meat their entire lives.

They wanted meat now. They couldn't deal with a little first when God was going to give them a land where they could have all the water they wanted all the time, no matter what. They couldn't deal with a little bit of work of walking there when they were going to get to a place that at that time was so rich they could just grow food as much as they wanted. They just lusted after the things that they could not have, and they kept looking back at Egypt and saying, We want what we had in Egypt.

It was a better life. Don't look at what you gave up to become a child of God and say, That was better. You gave up nothing of value. There's nothing you gave up of value compared to what you can have now and what you can have in the future. You have to believe that. He goes on and he says, Do not become idolaters as some of them. And it's written that people sit down to eat and to drink and rose up the play.

If you go look up that, when it says that, it's when they built the golden calf. They say, Why did they build a golden calf? Why a cow? Well, study Egyptian mythology. The bull god was a very strong god. Why would they do that when the mountain was still thundering and lightning and smoking and they knew God was there because they needed an intercessor? They had told Moses, Go intercede for us. Moses, they thought, had died.

Maybe... I can't remember the bull god's name of Egypt. But maybe he can intercede for us. They kept mingling the paganism they learned in Egypt with the worship of God. They wouldn't give it up. This is what is so important to us to give up our idolatry. Completely. He says, Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did in a one-day 23,000 cell. Now, you can go back and look at numbers where that happened.

Why did that happen? Why would God kill 23,000 of His people in one day? They were having a big orgy, that's why. They were having a big orgy. It's interesting that the sexual immorality of Egypt was passed on to them. The early church, you read 1 Corinthians, had to deal with huge amount of sexual immorality. But the Roman Empire, Rome itself especially, and then Greece. Greece and Roman culture was incredibly sexually free. Homosexuality had been rampant in Greek culture for hundreds of years before this was written. And it was rampant in certain aspects of the Roman culture.

You know, how we all think the mighty Spartan warriors... Remember Sparta? I mean, those guys were tough, right? 300 of them fought the entire Persian army, remember? You know, one of the reasons why they were that way. I guess they gotta say this. There's children in the room. Smart military practice was you took a boy away from home when he was 12, and he stayed with men all his life. And they bonded. That's why you fought so hard for the guy next to you.

He was your mate. And I don't mean the way the Aussies mean your mate. Marriage in Sparta was very weird. You got yourself a woman. You only saw her a few times through your lifetime until you retired. You went in and basically procreated with her. That's all you did. And then you went back to your mates. Boy, that's weird, isn't it? I used to think, wow, the mighty Spartans. It's like, whoa! That's why they wouldn't leave a man on the field.

Greek culture was rampant with all kind of immorality, as was the Roman culture. And the early Christians fought that. You and I have to fight that.

And once our country accepts homosexual marriage, the floodgates will be open forever and ever and ever. That's it. You won't be able to stop what's going to happen. But you know homosexuality is a symptom. Homosexuality doesn't enter into a society until it's already sexually perverse.

You have to have already a sexually perverse society for that to come out of it. So it's just the next step in a sexual evolution that's going on. It didn't come out of nowhere. It's because of heterosexual sin. It's such a peak that that's the next step. We have to fight this. And here he is telling these people at Corinth, don't go back into that in your lives.

And then he says in verse 9, Nor let us tempt Christ, tempt Christ. Christ would whip these people. Remember the context? It's the people coming through the Red Sea. Nor let them tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, or were destroyed by serpents. Now, what did they do that they were destroyed by serpents? You can go back and read it in Numbers 21. But he explains it here. It's back in Numbers 21, verses 4 through 9.

He says, You know why God set snakes among them and killed thousands of them? He sought the plague. He didn't kill everybody. Because the people griped and griped and complained. They were negative. They never saw anything good. They never saw what God was doing. They hated their leaders. They hated the way things were done. They just griped.

God sent snakes, thousands of snakes, and killed thousands of people. And he tells the church of Corinth, Don't do that. Don't go down that road. Verse 11, All these things happened to them as examples. They were written for our admonition about whom the ends of the ages have come.

Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls. Interesting. We can look at and see the lessons from Exodus 13 and 14. And then we can turn to 1 Corinthians 10, and Paul is basically doing what I'm doing. Let me go back. Let me go back and look at Exodus 13 and 14 and the few chapters after that and what happens in numbers. And let's explain what happened during that time period. And let's make sure we don't go there. It's a warning. It's a warning to the church. Don't go there. These four areas are always going to be a struggle within the church. They still are today.

God promises us a lot.

God promises us a lot. And this time of the year reminds us of what we must do, removing sin, taking in Jesus Christ. You and I are immersed in Jesus Christ. And at this time of year, we think about that probably more than any other time of year, because we're looking at a sacrifice. We're remembering our water immersion. We're remembering that we received God's Spirit. We're remembering that sin is being taken out of us. We're remembering that we actually symbolize that blood and that broken body for us. We look at what God is putting into us all the time, and how we must submit to that. We must respond to it. So at this time of year, in some ways, we're more immersed into Christ than we are other times. The thing is, you and I need to be immersed into Christ every day. Every day. We study Moses. We learn from Moses. We're supposed to keep the laws. But it's interesting. The prophecies don't say that when the Messiah comes, Moses will interpret the laws. What's it say? The Messiah will interpret the law. The Messiah will expand the law. That out of Jerusalem will come the law of God. Why? Because Moses is there? No, he'll be there. What he'll say is because the Messiah is there. Remember the warnings that Paul gives here. The warning not to desire evil things. The warning is against idolatry and sexual immorality. The warning not to keep pushing against God because we just gripe and complain until it finally says, I'm tired of it. Remember those warnings. But keep focused on what God is doing. Keep focused on the promises. Keep focused on the sacrifice of Christ and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what he's doing now and the pouring out of the Spirit. Keep focused on where he's going to take you. Keep focused on the Promised Land. I don't know how far it is. I mean, I know because I keep asking exactly what I would have been doing there. How far is it? How long? How far is it? How long do we have to walk? It's hot. I'm hungry.

And that's what I do now. I don't know how far it is. I just know it's there. Keep focused on that. That it's there. Keep focused. Remember the warnings that Paul gives us. But always in the context of the promises that God gives us.