<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Cedar Lake SDA Church

Admonitions for the Last Days

Mark Howard

1. Admonitions for the Last Days

2. New Theology & Half-Hearted Christians

3. That Quaint Little Restaurant in Cairo

4. Look and Live

5. Itching Ears

6. A Little Leaven

Heavenly Father, we are thankful to be in your house today.

I thank you for our visitors today, the special music, all of the wonderful things so far we've been blessed with in this service.

I pray now that your Holy Spirit would speak to us through your word and give us ears to hear and hearts to respond for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

Now I don't wanna spend a lot of time belaboring things we've already talked about here in 1 Corinthians 10, but this is our setting and the main gist of it, in fact, if you look at 1 Corinthians 10, sorry, 10, verse 1, the apostle Paul says, moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all of our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.

And what the Apostle's telling us here is, he's talking about an experience that all of the Israelites had in common as they left Egypt, but through this chapter, he traces down to the fact that all of them had that same experience of the vast number that came out of Egypt, which we can figure conservatively around 2 million, 2 of the original went into the promised land.

That should be a little bit alarming, and it's alarming to the Apostle Paul, because he knows it could happen again, not that it must happen again.

And so what he does is he wants to admonish us, give us some warnings and encouragements in the right direction so we don't make the same mistakes.

He says, now these things, that is the experiences of the children of Israel, became what?

Our examples to the intent or for this reason that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted and do not become idolaters and again I don't want to go through this piece by piece, this part here, but we've talked about this, and you can study it in your Sabbath afternoon, but Paul brings up 5 specific experiences from the history of the Israelites as lessons for us.

In verse 6 he says it happened to them as examples, and then he kind of binds that off in verse 11 by saying again, now all these things happened to them as what?

Examples, and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

And so he's wanting us to learn some lessons from the history of the children of Israel.

Now, I told you when we started this that I'm going in the order that they appear in the Bible.

So even though he gave in his list in verse 7 he talks about becoming idolaters and refers back to the time of the golden calf that happened first in Scripture.

So we already looked at that 1 and we saw the children of Israel were longing for the worship of Egypt.

Today we're going to see that they were also longing for the food of Egypt.

That's the title of that quaint little restaurant in Cairo.

Question number 6, or not question number 6, but verse number 6 says that these things became examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.

If you read through the list of his examples, this is probably the 1 that is the least clear.

And so, in other words, you know, lusting after evil, that could refer to anything.

So just so you know that I'm not just taking a stab in the dark at this, I want you to understand that almost universally, biblical scholars understand this to be a reference to the story in Numbers 11, which is where we're gonna go here in just a moment.

Just as a for instance, the Bible Knowledge Commentary, which is published by the Dallas Theological Seminary, observes that Paul is recounting what they call a five-fold failure, the 5 stories, experienced by Israel during this time.

He began with the Israelites craving for the pleasure of Egypt, summarized in their plaintive cry, give us meat to eat.

And of course, if you look into Albert Barnes or Adam Clark or John Gill or Matthew Henry or Jameson Fawcett Brown commentary, a number of them you could look at, non-Adventist commentaries, they all will take you back to Numbers chapter 11.

And if you have a Bible with center column references and you look there after lusting after evil things, it will take you back to Numbers 11.

So let's go to Numbers 11 and look at this story that the Apostle Paul is drawing our attention to, upon whom the ends of the world have come.

The book of Numbers is the fourth book in the scripture, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers.

We are following along with the children of Israel as they have come out of the land of Egypt and they're traveling through the wilderness to the promised land.

Now for sake of time, I am not going to go through every part of this chapter, but we're going to get the main gist of Paul's point, this lusting after evil things.

Just so you understand, also, when he says in 2 Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians 10, they are lusting after evil things.

That word evil doesn't mean inherently evil, but things which are harmful.

And so it's not necessarily a moral thing he's pointing out, as much as it is that they were desiring harmful things.

Numbers 11, and let's look at verses 1 through 6 here.

The Bible says, Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord, For the Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused.

So the fire of the Lord burned among them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp.

Then the people cried out to Moses, and When Moses prayed to the Lord, the fire was quenched.

So he called the name of the place Tibera, because the fire of the Lord had burned among them." Now notice verse 4, now the mixed multitude, who is it here?

They're Egyptians who came in among the Israelites.

But they have a lot of Egypt in their heart.

The mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving.

So the children of Israel also wept again and said, Who will give us meat to eat?

And our understanding of manna is, sometimes we, I remember growing up and thinking manna was like a little cracker or something.

Some little, it's like a little wafer made with honey, the Bible says.

But if you read the scripture, it does say that they would grind the manna, or boil the manna.

They often ground it down into a flour and made things out of it.

But the Lord had fed them manna in the wilderness and they were not content with that.

Number 5, verse 5, we remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, the garlic.

And so some of these items are things that are very water heavy, right?

They're looking, oh, the melons would be so good and the cucumbers.

And then some of them may be a little more flavor than what they're getting in the manna.

Verse 6, But now our whole being is dried up, and there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes.

Now this isn't the only time that the children of Israel complained about the manna.

Incidentally, when they complained about the manna, what were they complaining about?

I mean, we could probably go on quite a tangent about how often we say, yes, I want the Lord to guide me and I want to follow His will, but we find ourselves complaining when He makes His will known.

Now I want to jump ahead to verse 18, and the Bible describes the manna, and then actually goes into Moses getting a little frustrated with this.

There are a lot of lessons we could draw here from chapter 11, but Paul is zeroing in on this lusting after the food of Egypt.

And the Lord directs Moses, then you shall say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat.

For you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, Who will give us meat to eat?

Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat.

You shall eat not 1 day, nor 2 days, nor 5 days, nor 10 days, nor 20 days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have what?

Despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?

So they would rather be slaves and indulge their appetites than follow the will of the Lord.

So here they're just recounting the story and incidentally Moses tells them, the Lord tells Moses to tell them, you're not going to get your meat for 1 day or 2, you're going to have it for a whole month until it comes out your nostrils.

When does food that you eat come out your nostrils?

So just that's what the Bible is trying to communicate here.

I don't want to get any more graphic than that, but you get the picture.

So, he goes on to say, and of course Moses is wondering what to do with this.

Verse 21, Moses said, the people whom I am among are 600, 000 men on foot.

Yet you have said, I will give them meat that they may eat for a whole month.

Right, so where am I gonna get that from is his idea.

Now jump ahead to verse 34, we'll get the main gist of this.

So the Bible says as the Lord comes to bring this to pass, it says, Now a wind went out from the Lord, and it brought quail from the sea, and left them fluttering near the camp, about a day's journey on this side, and about a day's journey on the other side, all around the camp and about 2 cubits above the surface of the ground.

And the people stayed up all that day, all night, and all the next day and gathered the quail.

He who gathered, it really isn't that bad, It's going to get better here, okay?

The people stayed up all that day, all night, and the next day, gathered the quail, he who gathered the least gathered 10 omers, and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp.

But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague, so he called the name of that place Kibrath HaTava, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving." So the Apostle Paul, now the children of Israel had a lot of experiences, but the Apostle Paul sees fit for those of us living at the end of time to say, you know what, this is a story that we especially need to be aware of in the last days.

Back to Menu

Series

Admonitions for the Last Days

3. That Quaint Little Restaurant in Cairo

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The History of the Church and The Reformation

02 Light Through Darkness

1h 16m

Lifestyle

Fighting the Metabolic Disease Conspiracy

48m

A Much Needed Reform

1h 18m

Continuing the Reformation

End-time Living

1h 11m

The Book of Romans

The Bible and Politics

39m

The Health Message

Nutrition “Avoiding Babylon’s Table”

58m

The Mental Illness We All Have — and How to Solve It

1h 2m

The Mind of Christ

03 Dulling of the Mind Part 2

55m

Admonitions for the Last Days

1. Admonitions for the Last Days

46m

An Eye for an Eye

44m

The Forgotten Victory at Calvary

42m

Sound Doctrine