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Cedar Lake SDA Church

Admonitions for the Last Days

Mark Howard

1. Admonitions for the Last Days

Heavenly Father, once again, we are so grateful for the Sabbath.

We're grateful for the beautiful sunshine today.

We're grateful for the freedom that we have to come and worship together without having guards at the doors, without being hauled off to prison.

And Father, it's more of a reality in this world than some of us realize.

So help us to treasure our time that we get to spend now together.

And Father, I pray that as we're here in this house of worship, you would give us ears to hear and hearts to respond to the voice of your Holy Spirit.

For Father, we're asking it in the precious name of Jesus.

Now, if you go back just a little bit from 1 Corinthians 10, Paul gives us a run in and no pun intended, but you'll see why I say that in just a minute, verse 24.

The apostle has been giving instruction to the church in Corinth.

I don't want to spend much time on this, but I don't know.

Incidentally, let me just put in a plug for prayer meeting.

We've been going through our discipleship handbook.

We do it every Wednesday evening from 7 to 8.

And it's been a real blessing, but we touched on this this week.

In the beginning of Corinthians, there are similarities between the Corinthian church and the Seventh-day Adventist church that I find interesting.

And as I said in prayer meeting, that's kind of cool and then it's kind of not cool if you've ever read 1st and 2nd Corinthians because they had their challenges, but we have our challenges too.

We're all sinners who need a Savior, amen?

And so in 1st Corinthians 1, the apostle in verse 4 says this, he says, I thank my God always concerning you, he's speaking to the Corinthian church, for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus.

That you are enriched in everything by Him in all what?

The way I want to break that down is utterance is what you say.

And you're talking to a church, you're talking about the church's communication of the truth in preaching and teaching.

This church has been enriched by Jesus in their preaching and teaching.

Utterance and knowledge, their understanding of the truth.

And I believe that God has blessed the Seventh-day Heaven's Church with an understanding for special truth for the time we live in in the last days, prophetic understandings and what have you.

Now verse 6 is 1 that a lot of people can read over and part of that is due to some of the way it's translated and I'll touch on that in just a moment.

Now it depends on which Bible you're reading.

If you're reading the King James Bible or the New King James Bible, it will say the testimony of Christ.

If you're reading an ESV or an NIV or maybe a New American Standard, I'm not sure about the New American Standard, it will say testimony about Christ or about Jesus or something to that effect.

And the Greek phrase can be read either way.

You come to Revelation 12, 17 and It says that the dragon was enraged with a woman and went to make a war with the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and have thee, and depending on your translation you can say the testimony of Jesus Christ or the testimony about Jesus Christ.

And so that phrase could be read both ways.

Now we know by comparing Revelation 19, 10, and 22, 8, and 9 that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, as it says in Revelation 19, 10, or it has to do with the prophetic gift.

Now I want you to notice here, again in verse 6, it says, even as my Bible says the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.

Now, some say the testimony about Christ.

Verse 7 says, so that you come short in what?

OK, The testimony of Christ or the testimony of Jesus in scripture refers to the gift of prophecy and this church has it so that she comes short in no gift.

Either you're sleepy or you just didn't get it.

So this church is enriched in their utterance and knowledge, their preaching, their teaching, their understanding, even as the testimony of Christ or the testimony of Jesus is confirmed in them.

Testimony of Jesus is the gift of prophecy.

We see that in verse 7 because it says, so that, because they have this testimony of Christ, so that you come short in no gift.

And Then it says, eagerly waiting for what?

The revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

So here's a church who is enriched in their understanding of truth, enriched in their preaching of truth, they have the gift of prophecy, and they're looking for the coming of Christ.

It's kind of like our sister church, if you will.

I know if you read the letters you might not want to go there, but that's what I'm seeing here in this passage.

And I love that last part where it says that we're waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus who will confirm us to the end blameless.

Can Jesus confirm us blameless to the end?

Yes He can and He will and He promises to do so.

Now this is the church that the apostle is speaking to and I want you to go to 1 Corinthians 9 with me and we're going to get the run in to the passage in 1 Corinthians 10 which will be our primary focus.

After Paul has given much instruction to this church, we're going to pick up in verse 24 of chapter 9, and this is what Paul says, Paul says, do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only 1 receives the prize.

Run in such a way that you may obtain it.

Now, Paul is talking about the Greek races, which became what we would know as the Olympics today.

These are not little races, these are intense races.

You're going to see this in the language in a minute.

But he's making the point, And anybody who's ever run, how many of you run in a race before?

Okay, there's only 1 who comes in first place.

If you're in that race, you want to run to win.

Now he's gonna make a spiritual application, which we're gonna see in a moment.

And then he says in verse 25, everyone who competes for the prize, they wanna win, they wanna come in number 1, is temperate in how many things?

Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we do it for an imperishable crown.

Now you know if you've won, how many of you have seen the Olympics?

You win the Olympics, you know what you get?

And he says that, an imperishable crown, the Greek word is stefanos, that's where we get the name Stephanie, my wife's name, or Stephen from.

It's a victor's crown compared to the diadema, which is a kingly crown.

Person runs in a race, they win a crown of leaves, right?

Maybe seeing a picture of the Olympic run, and they have this little thing of leaves around their head.

2. New Theology & Half-Hearted Christians

Now, if you look in the bulletin, it tells us that we're in the series, Admonitions for Last Days, Part 2.

You may remember that I started this quite a while ago.

I really wasn't sure when we started it, and I actually just looked back on my phone, it was in February.

It was in February, and we took a little segue, and I just want to give a little refresher very briefly from our scripture reading this morning, 1 Corinthians 10, where I'm drawing this out of.

1 Corinthians 10 And verse 1, the Bible says, Moreover brethren, I do not want you to be what?

Ignorant or unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ.

But with most of them God was not well pleased for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

Our examples that we should not and then he goes on and recounts some experiences which I'll touch on in a moment and then in verse 11 he repeats again now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

And thus the title of admonition is for the last days.

The Apostle Paul is telling us and in fact he gives us the reasoning.

He basically tells us that of all, and notice his language there in the first few verses, all of our fathers did this, all of our fathers did this, all of our fathers, all of our fathers, all of our fathers, all of our fathers, except with most of them God was not well pleased.

They all had the same spiritual experience, they went to the same church, they ate at the same fellowship meal, they did the same outreach projects.

And so what the Apostle Paul is saying is, I'm warning you not to repeat the example of ancient Israel.

Just because you all go to the same church and church school and whatever else things that you do is not going to be the thing that makes the difference.

And so he gives us an admonition and he specially speaks to those who are living in the last days.

In the course of chapter 10, he recounts 5 different experiences from the history of Israel And I think that Paul's intent is that all of those experiences are for our admonition.

And in this series we're going to look through 5.

And we're going to go through them chronologically rather than the order he brings them up in.

The 5 experiences, just so you know right now, are the experience of the golden calf found in Exodus 32, the experience where Israel was clamoring for the food of Egypt in Numbers 11, Korah's rebellion in Numbers 16, the serpent on a pole in Numbers 21, and the incident at Baal Peor in Numbers 25.

And all of these things as we go through this series, you're going to find are almost strikingly and surprisingly applicable to our day.

Today we're going to look at the golden calf.

The story of the golden calf written as the Apostle Paul says for our admonition.

In other words, those of us living at the end of time should be able to look at this story and draw things out that will speak specifically and especially to us today.

And So I want you to put your thinking caps on with me as we draw out of this story what it's trying to communicate to those living at the end of time.

I want to just give you a little run in to where we are.

We're going to Exodus 32, that's where we find the story of the golden calf.

Now God has gathered his people together.

Of course he's brought them out of the land of Egypt in Exodus chapter 12.

He's gathered them together at Mount Sinai, proclaimed to them his 10 commandments, followed by his statutes and judgments, and all the people entered into covenant with God.

We call that the old covenant in Exodus 19-23.

Then God invited Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel into his presence to eat the sacrificial feast of the covenant they had just made.

And then the Lord called Moses up even further into the mountain to actually give him the tables of stone and the instruction for the tabernacle and its services.

Now it's while Moses is up in the mountain with God, He went up there and he told the others who had come up part way with him, the Adab, Abihu, the 70 elders, etc., Aaron, that I'm going up and I'll be back.

Well, God didn't give him a time frame and the Bible says he was there 40 days and nights.

So after some period of time, they figured, we're not going to wait for him up here, we're going to go down among the people.

And it was while they were down among the people, this is where we pick up in Exodus 32.

We're going to read through the whole chapter of Exodus 32.

The Bible says, Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain.

When Moses was delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come, Make us gods that shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.

Now a lot of commentators say that the reason Aaron did this was he was thinking in most cases that people would never have been willing to part with their ornaments.

And so he thought, well I'll ask them for this and they'll say, well no way, I'm not taking my jewelry off and he'll say, ah good, I'm out of that 1.

Only this time they were all too willing to part with their ornaments.

The Bible says, verse 3, so all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron and he received the gold from their hand and he fashioned it with the engraving tool or an engraving tool and made a molded calf.

Then they said, this is your God, I'm sorry, yeah, then they said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it.

And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.

A couple of things I want to draw your attention to.

When he saw that it met the approval of the people, then he said, hey, let's run with this thing.

And it says that he proclaimed a feast to who?

Now that's just so you know in case you didn't, that's what translators do with what theologians call the Tetragrammaton.

That is when Hebrews wrote the name of God, they wouldn't write the vowels.

And some people have added vowels and come away with the word Yahweh from that.

Some have assumed that the vowels added in, the Y makes a just sound and the W makes a V sound, they've come with Jehovah from that, but that's where they get it from.

And when you find L-O-R-D capital in your Bible, it is the proper name of the God of heaven.

It's important that you know that when they did this feast and they built the calf, Aaron did not proclaim a feast, this was not to Apis, the bull guide in Egypt.

Everything that we're doing here, it may be different from what we're accustomed to, but we're doing it to the Lord.

Verse 6, Then they rose early on the next day, offered bird offerings, and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

You can do a little research on the word play there, but it doesn't mean tag.

And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get down, for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.

They have made themselves a molded calf and worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, indeed it is a stiff-necked people.

Now therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation." Now I have to interject.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this today, So I have to interject here.

Some people read this and they say, man why is God God is just so wanting to destroy them all.

Did God need to ask Moses to get out of the way?

Because God was testing Moses to see if Moses would intercede for the people.

God could have just destroyed him if he wanted to destroy them.

When he said get out of the way and let me do this, It was an appeal to Moses.

It let Moses know that if I don't get out of the way, I can do something about this.

Verse 11, Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said, Lord, Why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

3. That Quaint Little Restaurant in Cairo

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.

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Admonitions for the Last Days

1. Admonitions for the Last Days

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