LESSONS OF THE SOUL : Revealed in Wilderness

Every contestant in the race seeks nothing less than to win the race. Only one runner receives the prize. The Corinthians should do no less than the contestants in the Isthmian games—they should run in such a way as to win. Paul is not talking about salvation here. He is not urging the lost to work hard in order to reach the goal of winning their salvation. He is challenging the Corinthian saints to strive to fulfill their calling as saints. Races are not won automatically.

The athlete who wins outperforms his fellow-athletes, who also want to win. The athlete who wins the race is that individual who most wants to win, who purposes to win, and who is willing to pay the price for winning. The thing which sets a winning athlete apart from the rest is his self-control. This self-control is not simply evident in the race, nor is it restricted only to the realm of athletics. The winning athlete disciplines every area of his life so that he may win the race.

• Every Christian's Journey Toward Eternity….
• Love Stories?
• Best Hikes with Dogs Western Washington 2nd Edition.
• Have You Ever Felt God Has Left You? Are You in the Wilderness??
• The Shattering of the Union: America in the 1850s (The American Crisis Series: Books on the Civil War Era).
• Love & Light: A Collection of Inspirational Stories & Poems?

The winning athlete will not stay up late watching television or going out, because his body needs rest. He will not eat like everyone else, because many foods will only make him fat and flabby. In the Second Century A. How much more effort and sacrifice should we be willing to make in order to win so great a crown? From the Isthmian games held near Corinth, Paul turns to the first generation of Israelites to leave Egypt, cross through the Red Sea, and begin to make their way toward the promised land. These ancient Israelites of Old Testament times are the counterparts of the Corinthians and Christians today.

While there are differences between Israel and the church, Paul wants his readers to sense the continuity. Their experiences are not that different from our own, and their failures are just like ours. These Corinthians, like their Jewish counterparts see Matthew 3: Paul turns their attention to the first generation of Israelites to leave Egypt, showing that while they were granted blessings which closely parallel those of the New Testament saints, they nevertheless fail to enter into the promised land.

In the first five verses of chapter 10, Paul follows the same general theme he has introduced in 9: The first blessing was that of divine deliverance, or we might say salvation. All were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. In so doing, the Israelites escaped from their captivity, and the army which pursued them perished. The term was used of a garment which was immersed in a die, which identified with it by taking on that color. They were enveloped by the cloud and also by the sea as they followed Moses.

As water baptism by immersion symbolizes our identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection see Romans 6: At communion, we eat of the bread, and we drink of the wine. The bread symbolizes the sinless body of our Lord. The wine symbolizes the blood which He shed on our behalf, cleansing us from sin. The Israelites of old were blessed with eating and drinking which foreshadowed the communion we now celebrate by eating the bread and drinking the wine.

They all ate of the spiritual food. This food was the manna, which God miraculously provided for the Israelites for 40 years. This is a most amazing statement. There are any number of fantastic explanations of what Paul means. The simplest way to understand Paul is to recognize that he is not speaking of a physical rock, but of a spiritual rock.

Christ was the source of the water, particularly on those occasions when Moses struck the rock. But more than this, Paul wants us to know that Christ was ever present with His people in their wilderness trek. He was there to care for His people, to meet their need for water. God supernaturally provided for all of the true needs of all the Israelites during their 40 years in the wilderness. He divinely provided for their salvation, for their protection, and for their guidance, by the cloud and by leading them through the sea.

God provided for the food and water which these Israelites required while in the wilderness. Yet in spite of all these divine provisions, the Israelites failed to enter into the land.

Only two of all those wilderness wanderers ever entered the land of Canaan. Even Moses was not permitted to enter the land. Even though God provided for their essential needs, they did not please God, and they did not enter the land. Many left Egypt; all partook of divine blessings and privileges; only two entered the promised land. More than this, those who failed to enter into the promised land were those who lacked self-discipline, and who fell due to their self-indulgence. In verses , Paul will identify those specific sins which plagued the ancient Israelites, resulting in their failure to please God and to possess the land of Canaan.

He may even be saying that their experiences are examples of us. Self-control is the discipline we impose on our flesh so that we can win the race. In verses , we will see that Paul links the experience of the ancient Israelites directly to the experience of the Corinthians and us.

Survive the Wilderness Seasons of Life

They lacked self-control, and they craved evil things. Each of the failures Paul highlights from the history of the first generation of Israelites is a failure of self-indulgence. And each of the failures is associated with eating and drinking, with food.

Food—that is, meat offered to idols—is still the issue at hand, and Paul now shows us what we can learn about food and self-indulgence from the Israelites of old. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna. How tragic is this description of the Israelites in the wilderness. It was not that they lacked food to eat, for God provided for their bodily needs. They wanted something tastier, something spicier. The unbridled craving, the fleshly desires of the Israelites which they sought to satisfy, led to their death in the wilderness. Self-discipline would have enabled them to finish their course, to win the race.

Paul seems intent upon pointing out not only their idolatry, but what accompanied it. Their idolatry was associated with eating and drinking. They offered sacrifices to the idol, and then they sat down to eat and to drink of these foods, which were a part of the heathen sacrificial service. One further note should be made concerning this idol worship of the Israelites, which Moses described in Exodus Their worship was not only heathen, it was unrestrained indulgence. There was no self-discipline here, and this is the kind of self-indulgence which kept the Israelites from entering the land.

The third failure of the Israelites of old is that of immorality: The important thing to note here is that, once again, immorality is viewed as a part of the package of idolatry.

1. Alone in the Valley.
2. Daemon: Night of the Daemon;
3. El dilema de los próceres: Sherlock Holmes y el caso de las cartas ocultas de Rosas y San Martín (Spanish Edition).
4. Crossing the Red Sea: Seven Lessons God Has For Us?
5. Dark Night of the Soul;
6. Survive the Wilderness Seasons of Life.
7. T 011: Ein Magier lässt die Puppen tanzen (TEUFELSJAEGER) (German Edition)?

The Israelites fell into immorality with the Moabite women as they joined with them in their idol worship. Here they were, sinning so as to be laid low in the wilderness, and this sin of immorality was linked with idolatry and with the eating of idol-meat. There were at least ten such occasions when the Israelites put the Lord to the test see Numbers Some of these incidents are recorded in the Old Testament:. Why do you test the Lord? A little more and they will stone me. Putting God to the test was demanding that God meet their perceived needs, in the way which they demanded.

The question of Exodus According to the psalmist, they demanded that God supply them with the food they craved to prove He was among them. For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food. They put Moses on notice that they were sick and tired of the food God provided.

CONTACT US

The result was the plague of fiery serpents, whose poisonous tongues so to speak were illustrative of the tongues of the Israelites compare Psalm God had led Him into the wilderness to be without food or water. Consequently, Satan sought to persuade our Lord to make stones into bread. Later on in His wilderness testing, Satan sought to convince our Lord to jump from the pinnacle of the temple, reminding Him of the biblical assurance of angelic protection.

Jesus, still dealing with Satan from the context of the early chapters of Deuteronomy, reminded Satan of the evil of putting God to the test, of trying to make God jump through our hoops. Finally, the ancient Israelites failed by grumbling: So he put on the incense and made atonement for the people.

IHOP-KC's Michael Rizzo shares how to survive the desert places in life

In Exodus 16, the grumbling of the Israelites was about food. The incident Paul seems to have in mind is recorded in the 16th chapter of Numbers. Korah, Dathan, Abiram and others from among the leaders of Israel rose up against Moses, protesting against his prominence and authority. In the events that followed, these rebels were swallowed up alive by the earth, along with their families Only the intervention of Moses and Aaron stopped the plague which commenced against the grumblers, but not until after 14, perished This incident is especially pertinent because the grumbling of the Israelites was occasioned by the exercise of divine discipline.

The Israelites blamed Moses for the deaths of those who rebelled against God. Rather than mourn over this sin, they are proud of it see 1 Corinthians 5: Discover the Bible in light of its historical and cultural context! Your support now will help strengthen marriages, equip parents to raise godly children, save preborn babies, reach out to orphans and more by supporting our daily broadcasts, online and print resources, counseling, and life-changing initiatives.

Password Forgot your password? Learn about upcoming promotions, releases, and other updates from That the World May Know. Want information about taking a tour? Central Ave Zeeland, MI Our Way of Hope. The Way of the Essenes. The Way of John the Baptist. Into the Desert to Be Tested.

Lessons From the Present and the Past (1 Cor. ) | www.newyorkethnicfood.com

During their forty years of testing in the desert, God continued to teach and shape the Israelite nation. By the time they entered the Promised Land, a new generation had formed, a people who obeyed and trusted God with all their heart, soul, and strength. Follow along as this lesson invites God to reveal what you are lacking, so you can learn to walk in His ways with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.