“I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground… Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, or worship idols as some of them did… And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day. Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.”
1 Corinthians 10:1-11 NLT
Today’s point doesn’t require a lot of deep thought on my part, the Bible is pretty straightforward on this one! God filled his word with examples for us to follow or, in many cases, examples for us to not follow. He lays out clearly the warnings of the consequences that will result from disobedience so that we are without excuse when they come due. His chosen people were constantly getting into trouble, despite the wonders they had witnessed and being baptized as followers. Rather than trying to put a pretty face on his chosen ones and allowing the scribes to sweet the bad under the rug and only highlight the positives of their people’s history, God ensured that their repetitive and varied disobedience made its way into his Word that it might be passed on through generations for all time to come so that hopefully we can learn from the mistakes of others rather than make them ourselves. Pay attention to these examples. While we are made righteous by the blood of Christ when we accept him as our savior, we should never diminish the seriousness of sin. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Spend some time in the Old Testament and you will quickly see how seriously God regards sin, we should take it just as seriously.
~May the Lord make his face shine upon you and give you peace today
In the Living Word 