Learn From History!

11th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/9/15
1 Corinthians 10:1-5, 11-13


Learn From History!
I. Appreciate the daily grace of God.
II. Resist temptation.


What parent of small children hasn’t told them sternly at least once in their lives, “What happened the last time you did something like this?” The memory of a little child is short and the desire to do something they shouldn’t can be overwhelming. They haven’t learned their lesson yet.

There’s a rather familiar quote about learning from past mistakes. “Those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it.” And it’s true. It’s one of the reasons that history is one of the subjects taught in every school. Other individuals, other groups of people, entire nations of people have made these mistakes in the past, even though these attempts and the ideas behind them might have seemed to be wise and beneficial at the time. Regardless, they turned out to be disasters.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul was an excellent student of Jewish history. And what he knew pained him. He knew from history that his Jewish ancestors repeatedly, almost habitually, disregarded the Lord and his word, adamantly refused to obey him, flirted with temptation and sin, and even with idol worship. And it never turned out well for them. The results were always disastrous.

He took that history lesson and presented it to his beloved Christians in the city of Corinth. He didn’t want them to make the same mistakes. He didn’t want them to suffer the same spiritual damage. He wanted to spare them spiritual pain and suffering. In effect, he pleaded with them to learn from history.

And he makes the same plea to us this morning. Even though we’re separated by 2,000 years from the Corinthian Christians and 3,500 years from Paul’s Jewish ancestors, the potential still exists for us to fall into the same spiritual dangers. So learn from history! May the Holy Spirit, who imparts all saving wisdom, fill us with such wisdom today!

Part I.

Never before in history has our world been so connected. If you own a cell phone and, in particular a smart phone, you are connected with your world as long as the power is on and you’re in an area that has service. You are literally connected with people all over the world, if that’s what you choose to do.

But how often do you connect with your God? Your God doesn’t call, text, or tweet. He doesn’t have a Facebook page. He himself doesn’t have a website. So how do you stay connected with him?

Only through his word and his sacraments. That’s it. God comes to us through word and sacraments.

He did the same with the ancient Children of Israel, but he did so much more than that. The Children of Israel had so many advantages. Listen to Paul list them. “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.”

What’s Paul talking about? First, he states how God separated the Children of Israel from evil and set them apart from other nations as his special people. To accomplish that, he used several things. Paul recalls the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire at night. When Moses led the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, God placed these pillars between the Children of Israel and Pharaoh’s army. He separated his people from evil with an astounding miracle.

But there was more. Paul recalled how nearly 2 million Jewish people passed through the Red Sea. God caused the walls of water to pile up, allowing his people to walk safely to the other side and then caused those walls of water to come crashing down on Pharaoh and his army. He had separated his people for a special purpose, ultimately to use them to bring a Savior into the world.

But there was more. When his people complained about the shortage of food, God caused manna to fall from heaven, feeding them each day for 40 years. When the people complained of thirst, he brought forth water from a rock.

Notice what Paul writes about that rock. He states, “That rock was Christ.” Does Paul have his historical facts messed up? Not at all. His point is that the Son of God was behind every one of these miracles. Every day of their existence they were surrounded by powerful acts of their almighty God. Imagine seeing and experiencing what these Children of Israel did. God’s visible presence was right there with them in every one of these miracles. Each miracle called for them to place their trust in him as the God of their salvation. Imagine having these same advantages.

And what was the result? Not what you would expect. You would expect the people to be fully committed to the Lord, to love and serve him alone, to worship him with their lives, to gladly and willingly follow his guidance and will for their lives. But you’d be wrong. Listen to the historical facts. “Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.” God had led them to the edge of the Holy Land and was ready to give them the land, but the people stated, “We aren’t going in. The people who live there now are too strong for us. We’re going back to Egypt.” That’s when the Lord reached his limit. He announced that none of the adults who had witnessed all his miracles would go in. Instead they would wander 40 years in the wilderness and die.

Learn from history! What lesson is there for us in these words? Appreciate the daily grace of God!

Our God doesn’t reveal his grace to us today in pillars of cloud and fire. He doesn’t part waters for us. Don’t bother looking for manna on your front lawn tomorrow morning or for water to come flowing out of a rock. But look for his grace, nonetheless. Recall how we stay connected to our God. Only through his word and sacrament. The road to hell is paved with the souls of people who had the grace of God right before them but despised it. Sadly, it’s still happening today. In fact, there’s a voice in us that whispers constantly in our ears, “You’ve got better things to do today than stay connected with your God. There are all sorts of things in our world that are more interesting and pleasurable than taking time to hear God’s word or receiving the Lord’s body and blood in the sacrament.” And then we hear again these words, “Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.” There is nothing more important than staying connected to your God. He connected himself to you at your baptism. There he brought you to faith in Christ and also brought the forgiveness Christ won for you by his death on the cross. The Savior who stretched out his arms for you on the cross wants to hold you in his arms until he calls you home to heaven. Learn from history! Appreciate the daily grace of God!

Part II.

Is our society amoral? In other words, is there no right or wrong anymore? Does our government, big businesses and even institutions of higher learning bow to the gods of greed and power? Is there no such thing as the sanctity of human life? Have we sunk as low as we can go?

We aren’t the only ones in history to ask those questions. I imagine there were Christians in the city of Corinth asking the same things. Unfortunately, too few of them were doing so. That’s one of the reasons Paul wrote this letter.

He warned them, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!” If you play with fire, you’re bound the get burned. Paul’s Jewish ancestors played with spiritual fire and got burned. Paul told the Corinthians, “Learn from history! Don’t overestimate your spiritual strength. Don’t think you can flirt with sin and not get burned. It doesn’t work!”

On the other hand, don’t despair. Don’t think you have it worse than anyone else. Paul writes, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” Believe it or not, God knows what he’s doing. He sees past, present and future with absolute clarity. He knows how everything is going to work out. So when temptation comes your way, and it does every day more times than you can count, count on your God to help you. Lean on him. He will provide a way out, the same way out that your Savior perfectly used for you when he was tempted—the powerful word of God. Cling to your Savior whose almighty arms surround you. And when you do, when you defeat temptation, he is honored and glorified and you are blessed instead of burned.

Learn from history! Resist temptation.

Maybe I’m just getting old and crusty, but it seems to me that resisting temptation is harder to do than ever before. Perhaps that’s because sin is portrayed as entertainment in our world. Perhaps that’s because we no longer have to imagine sinful situations; we can see them on the smartphone in our hands 24/7/365. And Satan knows it. He’s a master at using technology to grab your soul in an attempt to drag it to hell. Learn from history! Resist temptation. The Savior who died and rose again empowers you through his word and sacrament to do just that. You’re not alone in your struggle. Your Savior who promised to be with you always is right there with you. The eternal future of your soul and the souls of your loved ones is at stake. Learn from history! Cherish God’s daily grace and with his power win the victory over temptation! Amen.