Escaping Idolatry

Transcript

Good morning. I have not had the pleasure of meeting you. My name is Greg Taylor. I serve as one of the lay pastors here. And this morning, we’re going to dig into the 10th chapter of 1st Corinthians. And I’ll just apologize ahead of time that this is going to be a long sermon. I did my best to give you what I think you need to hear from this. There’s a lot going on in this text. It’s full of some very amazing things, as well as some very difficult things that we need to hear. You know, we’re going to deal with the issue of idolatry primarily this morning. We’ll also talk quite a bit about the Israelites and their exodus out of Egypt. We’ll have some people being killed by snakes this morning, and then we’ll even look at the subject of demons. So there is a ton here, but it is good and is good for us to open God’s word together.

So if I could ask you to open your Bibles to 1st Corinthians 10, I’m going to read verses one all the way through verse 22. And I’m not going to ask you to stand because it’s probably going to take me five minutes or so to read it. But anyway, if you can, you can stay seated, open up there. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be one under the seat in front of you. And in those little pew Bibles, this text is found on page 900. So 1st Corinthians 10, 1 to 22. Hear now the word of the Lord to you. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all 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,

for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them. And the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some of them did. And 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.

Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel, are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then, that food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray this morning and ask for the Lord’s help. Our Father and our God, there is so much here for us to learn. Much of it is encouraging. Some of it will be quite challenging for us. We receive from you some serious warnings and the beautiful offer of your grace and mercy to sinners. Oh God, help us to see and to understand all that you have for us from this text. God, will you expose the things that we need to have exposed in us, in our hearts, and

then help us draw near to repent and to begin to deal with our idols. And may we grow in holiness and victory out of these things, knowing it is you who is working in us to complete that which you have begun. And we pray all this in the name of our mighty rock, Jesus Christ, amen. Well, Jeremiah wrote, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can know it? Just as a crushing pain in the chest is a sign of a problem with your beating heart, idolatry is a sign of a sickness in your spiritual heart. Idolatry is to dethrone God with someone or something else, and most often that someone else is us. It is self. It is our desires for satisfaction and to get our way in life. Idolatry can be anything that takes us away from worshiping the true God in the right

or biblical way. John Calvin wrote, man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols. Making idols comes naturally to us. Paul addresses idolatry in the opening chapter of his letter to the Romans when he writes this, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. We as Christians dare not make ourselves Lord, because we have declared Jesus as Lord.

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Choose Your Side

And we have covenanted with our spiritual brothers and sisters. So we must now allow Jesus and his gospel to capture our hearts with his love and his grace and his glory, so that we can avoid our idols, avoid falling into the idol-making which our hearts are so prone to do. You need to better grasp just how big God is, and just how serious God is about your worship and about your holiness. A.W. Tozer said this, Christianity at any given time is strong or weak depending on her concept of God. The basic trouble with the church today is her unworthy conception of God. Our religion is little because our God is little. That stings a bit. This morning in our text, Paul is challenging us to choose sides. He will use the people and the events found in the Exodus from the Old Testament as a

warning to us from God that we must avoid falling into sin, into idolatry, the way the Israelites did. Paul is going to tell us that we must live carefully to avoid the kind of sin that caused God to destroy an entire generation of people. Now if you’re not familiar with the Exodus story, let me encourage you, it’ll take you several hours, maybe half a day, to read the Exodus story. It’s found in the first two books of the Bible, Exodus and Numbers. You should read that sometime. If you have read it, then this will make a little more sense to you, but the story in essence chronicles the Israelites being liberated from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. It starts off with Moses’ birth and then his rise as a leader, followed by God’s command to Pharaoh to release the Israelites, to which Pharaoh very badly refuses, didn’t work out

well for him. This results in ten devastating plagues that were brought upon Egypt by God. Pharaoh finally relents after the death of all the firstborn, and the Israelites are allowed to leave, and they begin their journey to the promised land. They cross the Red Sea through a miracle of God opening the waters. They receive the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and they endure 40 years of wandering in the desert due to their sin and disbelief. The narrative emphasizes God’s guidance and provision for His people, as well as His enduring faithfulness. And in verse 6 of our text this morning, Paul says that all this took place as an example for us to not desire evil as they did. So this means we must all choose sides, good, evil. We make choices every day about many, many things. Well, after getting into the promised land, Joshua, who was one of the few found faithful

in that generation, he said to the offspring of the generation, if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your father served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And it is my prayer that is the attitude of all of us, that we will serve the Lord. Now it’s amazing that Paul was using the Old Testament scriptures, which were of course the only scriptures that people had at the time, to teach a church that was primarily made up of Gentiles, lessons on how to live the Christian life and how to be pleasing to God, to be able to avoid the sins of their spiritual forefathers in the Exodus. Now think about how much more important it is for us.

We have the New Testament, which is what we use to interpret the Old Testament. But this is here for our edification and for our warning, and it is here to bless us to see that God does in fact require things of us. Now we are saved entirely by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone. But we are saved unto good works. We are saved unto obedience and holiness. And there is a standard to which we are to live. And one of the things that God will not tolerate is idolatry and the sins that flow out of it. So let me ask you a question this morning. Having already begun your Christian life, your walk with the Lord, whenever that was for you, whether you’ve been saved five months or 15 years, how often do you think about the importance and what it’s going to look like for you to finish the race?

How often do you think about what it’s going to look like for you to finish the race? I’ve said this to a lot of you younger people in here. You may have 30, 40, 50, 60 years to serve the Lord. What’s it going to look like when you get down to the end? Ultimately, you must understand that you cannot accept God and His blessings and also practice idolatry. Because God will not share His glory. He is a jealous God. We don’t talk about that very often, but it is true. These warning passages here that Paul writes are there to prompt us to avoid falling into habitual sin, primarily idolatry, and to possibly fall away from Christ. But instead, they’re here to urge us to persevere in the faith, to be thinking about finishing the race, however long that is God gives you. In order to break this down this morning and go through all of this, I’ve separated it

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God’s Blessings

out into three headings this morning. The first one will be God’s blessings. We’ll look at that in verses 1 to 4. Secondly, we’ll look at God’s displeasure. That will be in verses 5 to 10. And then we’ll finish up with a rather long section, God’s warnings, in verses 11 to 22. So let’s start this morning our first section, God’s blessings. Look with me at verse 1 in the text. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all 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. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. And when we start off here at the beginning in verse 1, the word for, he says for I do

not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters. He is pointing back to chapter 9, verses 24 to 27. And that was where Paul was, and that was two weeks ago if you weren’t here. Paul is pointing back to the idea that he was speaking of the athletic competitions, that they had to be done in such a way that you’re following the rules, or you’ll be disqualified. He’s challenging himself, and he’s challenging the Corinthians, and he’s challenging all of us to keep ourselves under self-control as it relates to sin, which could be the thing that could cause us to be disqualified. He used that language at the end of chapter 9. And now Paul is going to use the events of the exodus as an example for us. This is an example of how not, how not to run the race. It is an example of unfaithfulness to God, disbelief in God and His covenant promises.

And it was an example the Corinthians badly needed, because they were treading into very dangerous areas of sin, which amounted to idolatry, including that of eating food sacrificed to idols and temple worship that included sexual immorality. They were also being freedom flaunters, and they were creating situations that were causing weaker brothers and sisters to stumble into sin. Now Paul uses this Old Testament comparison when he says, our fathers. Those were the adults living in Egypt at the time that they were brought out, that God allowed himself to be a cloud. They followed him through the wilderness. He parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites could walk over on dry ground. And then as Pharaoh and his army chased them, the waters gathered again and drowned Pharaoh and his men. Notice he says they were baptized into Moses. That just means Moses was their leader.

This was the beginning of the Old Covenant. Notice we are baptized into Christ. We are identifying with Christ now as New Covenant believers. When they were hungry in the wilderness, God provided both manna and quail for them to eat. Water would be found in rocks several times along their journey. These are the visible blessings that God bestowed on His people, and they were once slaves for 400 years in Egypt. Now look in verse 4. This is truly amazing. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Paul is telling us that prior to his incarnation, the Lord Jesus was active in providing for God’s people. He was active in God’s redemptive plan to save a people for His own possession. This is part of our Trinitarian theology that runs throughout our Bible. As you read through the Exodus narrative, it was none other than the Lord Jesus Himself

who was bringing the Israelites out of bondage. Ponder that for a moment. He was present with them in the wilderness, just as He is present with us in the church. In His incarnation, He would come to lead us, who were once slaves to sin, out of our bondage. And He would go on to defeat death in His resurrection. As He fed the Israelites with food and drink, He feeds us spiritually in the Lord’s Supper every time we remember Him and His death for our sins when we partake of that meal together in a church service. Think about this. There was nothing, absolutely nothing the Israelites could do for themselves to get out of their bondage, just as there is nothing we can do to get out of our bondage. Jesus did it all. He is indeed our rock in the same way that David referred to God in Psalm 18.

God’s Displeasure

The Lord, Lord there is in all capitals, Yahweh is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Now it would be great if the story ended here for the Israelites, but it does not. Because in their liberation from Egypt, they sinned in numerous and grievous ways, which brings us to our next section, God’s displeasure. Look at verse 5. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. If you were to go back to Numbers 14, the people from the exodus grumbled against Moses. And they said, let us choose a new leader and go back to Egypt. And there were actually only four faithful men from that generation, Moses, Aaron, Joshua

and Caleb. And when they hear this, they fall on their faces before God. And they say to the people, do not rebel against the Lord. He will give us the land and do not fear the people now in the land for their protection has been removed. And what was the response of the people after they said this stone them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting. And listen to what God said. This is from Numbers 14, 11 if you’re interested.

How long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them. I will make of you a greater nation

— Numbers 14

(ESV)

, a nation greater and mightier than they. He’s saying that to Moses. Moses goes on and he pleads with God.

He says, do not destroy them. God is going to look really bad to the Egyptians and God relents. And then God goes on to say this. As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing, I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness and all of your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward who have grumbled against me. Not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, Joshua, the son of Nun, but your little ones who you said would become a prey I will bring in and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness 40 years and shall suffer for your faithlessness until

the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. That’s serious. God is not playing games. This is what Paul means when he says they were overthrown in the wilderness. Notice in verse 6, these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. This is a major warning passage for us and just as the Corinthians were struggling with some very serious things, we often struggle with some very serious areas ourselves. And we must view these warning passages as God’s kindness to us. Now Paul gives four areas of sin committed by the Israelites that were displeasing to God. These are the sins that the Corinthians needed to be watchful against and they are certainly sins we need to be watchful against. So let’s start in verse 7, the first one, idolatry. Do not be idolaters as some of them were.

As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Well, idolatry is one of those deeply embedded foundational sins that other sins flow out of. And this is the case with the Israelites, they were dealing with that. When it says the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play, that is a quote from Exodus 32. And it brings to mind the incident when Moses was off meeting with God. This is a very familiar story. He’s off meeting with God and the people become very impatient and they go and basically threaten Aaron, getting in his face and demand that Aaron make them false gods. We don’t even know what happened to Moses. He hasn’t come back. He’s been gone a long time. And Aaron makes them a golden calf to worship. And they hurled themselves into pagan worship.

Listen to what Tom Schreiner says about it. He says it is no accident that Paul selects the verse which describes Israel committing idolatry while eating and drinking. The warning to the Corinthians is clear. They too will be guilty of idolatry if they eat and drink in an idol’s temple. The words rose up to play in the citation, according to Paul, denote idolatry. And the Corinthians will be guilty of the same if they eat food offered to idols in temples. Oftentimes Christians struggle with a known sin. We know we have this particular sin. We deal with it. We know we need to kill it. But oftentimes to kill that sin, what we need to do is diagnose the sin that’s under that sin. There’s a more deeply embedded sin that sin flows out of. And idolatry and pride are two of those just foundational, deeply embedded core sins that

we must deal with, that we must be on the lookout for. Now let’s look at the three, the next three sins, and they were the ones that flowed out of the idolatry. First up, sexual immorality. Look at verse eight. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. And 23,000 fell in a single day. Now this is an Old Testament reference to when God brought a sudden plague on the people that killed this huge amount of people because they were whoring after the daughters of Moab and they were practicing Baal worship. This is not the first time that Paul has had to tell the Corinthians to avoid sexual immorality. How important must it be, both for them and for us, that he keeps telling them to avoid it, to flee from it. And I like to always remind you whenever we talk about this, that this refers to any sexual

practice that is not confined to a monogamous marriage between one man and one woman. It is just very, very simple what the Christian sexual ethic is. It’s black and white. This is what we are to abide to. Now second, the sin of testing Christ, which is actually the third sin, but the second one flowing out of idolatry. Look at verse nine. Some of your translations may say tempting Christ. Verse nine, we must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents. This is about what happened in Numbers 21. And the people are really mad at Moses. They have had enough of being in the wilderness. They are sick and tired of eating only quail and manna every day. And they go after him. And boy does God respond. God is sick and tired of their complaining. And He sends what must have been thousands of poisonous snakes to bite the people.

And it says many died. Now this idea of testing God, when Jesus was in the wilderness, He was being tempted by the devil to throw Himself up the temple mount. Devil took Him up to the temple mount and said, throw Yourself down. He quotes Psalm 91. He says, God will send His angels to protect you. What did Jesus do? He quoted scripture back to Satan and He said, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. So there is a prohibition against this. Now I want you to see something pretty amazing. Even in the midst of God judging His people, sending these snakes to bite them, God is still rich, rich in mercy towards sinners. And He offers an escape. Listen to this story as the snakes are going through the camp and they’re biting the people. The Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole.

And everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. Friends never doubt God’s desire to forgive no matter what it is you have done. The serpent on the pole is a foreshadow of the cross and what Christ would come to do for us. That Him being lifted up on that cross and dying on that cross, when we look to Him alone, He will forgive us. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with John Newton, but he had an amazing life. He was a terrible man at one point in his life. He actually captained a slave ship that took slaves back and forth from Africa to England. He later became saved as he was an older man.

He ended his life, I believe, as a pastor. He said this, I love this quote, later in life, he’s getting to the end, he’s finishing the race and he says this, Although my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior. I don’t know this morning what you’re in need of forgiveness for. Maybe you’ve seen some idolatry exposed in your own heart. Maybe you’ve been a person who’s put the Lord to the test or you’re a grumbler, but turn to Him, confess and repent of the sin and He will be willing to forgive you and to help you by His Spirit to grow you and to change you. And if you are here this morning and you’ve never come to Christ, you should know that the Lord Jesus died to forgive sinners. And He will accept anyone who will turn from their sin, seek His forgiveness.

He will forgive you and reconcile you to God. Inside the bulletin that we hand out when you come in, there’s a little prayer in there called a prayer of belief. There’s no magic in the prayer or in the words. It’s not a formula, but if you read through that prayer and it represents the position of your heart, it might be something you could use to begin to say a prayer and ask the Lord Jesus to forgive you. You’re always welcome to come after the service and speak with anyone you’ve seen up here. We’d love to have a conversation with you about the gospel and what it means to follow Jesus. Now, let’s look at the last sin, the sin of grumbling. And I’ll admit to you guys, I know a thing or two about grumbling. I grumble far too much. I know that about myself.

And the sin under the sin for me is discontentment. Look at verse 10, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. This is from Numbers 14. This is what we read earlier when Paul said in verse 7 that they were overthrown in the wilderness. And God said that generation would die because of their disbelief and their grumbling. Grumbling is a serious matter. And take note of the fact that it was God himself who was the destroyer. That is frightening because God will not be mocked by people. And while he is very, very patient, there eventually comes a time when God judges. It’s unavoidable. The greatest example of God’s judgment upon this world right now today is the fact that there is death in our world because that is due to Adam’s sin and all of our sin. I don’t like talking about death.

It’s not a pleasant subject to bring up, but it is our great enemy brought upon us by the fall. But if you are in Christ, you need not fear death. Amen to that. Now look at verse 11. This is where we get the bookend of the repeated phrase from verse 6 that tells us a second time. These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. So this is something God’s given us to take seriously. It’s been written down for us in our Bibles. And this reference to the end of the ages means that we are living in the days of the imminent return of Christ. Nothing needs to happen for Christ to return. We do not want to be like those that Jesus talked about in some of his parables who were

God’s Warnings

not ready. We have to know what time it is, right? What time is it? He could return at any time. We must be prepared. Listen to what Don Carson says, implicitly, it is all the more shocking if we who have received so much instruction and warning from ages past, ignore the wealth of privilege that is ours. In our blindness, we sometimes marvel at how Old Testament figures or groups could so quickly abandon the godly heritage and covenant they received. How much worse if we do so. He is so right about that. We can not only learn from the past, seeing the events of the Exodus, we must also have a plan for the present and the future. And that comes in our next and our final section, God’s warnings. So look with me at verse 12. Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

This therefore is pointing back to everything we have just discussed about all the examples given to us from the Israelites. And what is this warning us? Well first, it’s warning us against spiritual pride. It’s the other really heinous sin that so many of our obvious sins flow out of. Solomon said pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Pride is a serious, serious matter. Take heed literally means to be watchful. It is to guard against the sin that we know we may be susceptible to. Secondly, it is warning us against wrong thinking. Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed. We are really good at convincing ourselves how spiritually strong we are. That a little of this sin or a little of that sin won’t affect us. It is a lie and it is self-delusion. Some of the Corinthians were dabbling in idolatry and temples and thinking that it would have

no severe consequence on their walk with the Lord. And nothing could be further from the truth. What is it that you are dabbling in that you need to cut off? What are the sources for sin or the triggers to sin that you must avoid? This is the time to think about those things when we hit a text like this. Take heed. Be watchful in order to stand. Because to stand is the opposite of to fall. And this is related to persevering in the faith when the Christian life becomes hard. It is to do the right thing out of faith. Now look at verse 13. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to

endure it. Well this is a great promise given to you. This is an amazing promise. And it ties back to the idea of taking heed and standing. It is that God will equip you in the moments of weakness to escape the temptation to sin. Notice what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say stay and fight. What does it say to do? Flee. Escape. Escape. It is to do as Joseph did when literally being pulled by his clothes into a bed of sexual temptation and certain sin, ran away naked. Ponder that for a minute. Ran away naked to avoid falling into sin. And it cost him. It cost him his high position, being over part of his household. He went to prison for years. But he stood, didn’t he? He persevered. And he did that because it was God helping him. Do you ever feel like you’re the only one dealing with something really hard in the

way of a sexual temptation? Don’t believe it. This verse tells us otherwise. It’s common to man. You have other brothers and sisters right here in this church struggling right alongside you with similar or like things. So are you building relationships with people that you can confide in and pray for and be prayed for and be held accountable to flee these temptations? If not, this is part of being a church member. This is something you need to be doing actively. Look at verse 14. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. This therefore points back to verse 13 because God is faithful, because He’s promised you a way of escape, because you have brothers and sisters out there dealing with the same or similar things. Flee idolatry. Get away from it. Have nothing to do with it. Notice Paul writes to them with this great pastoral affection. He calls them my beloved.

He was sharing with them what God wanted for them, which was what was best for them to avoid falling back into idolatry. God’s love for them was being brought through Paul’s teaching and through these warnings and the promises, and Paul’s love for them and his desire for them is to see them grow in spiritual maturity, and that is what I want for all of you. I want to see you grow. I want to see you flee idolatry. Now look at verse 16. Paul appeals to them as a corporate body, the church. He says this, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body. For we all partake of the one bread.

Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What’s Paul doing here? He’s reminding them of the Lord’s Supper that they take together as a body, corporately, that draws them near to Jesus and to each other in unity. The Lord’s Supper is not some individual thing people do. The cup of blessing is a representative of Christ’s blood in the supper. There’s one bread that represents Christ’s body that was broken for us. The Savior, the one and only Jesus. When he says they are many, this is really beautiful, he says they are many. This is referring to their diversity and that they are united in one body, the church. Now Paul contrasts this beautiful picture of the church gathered and partaking of the Lord’s Supper to the really ugly reality of being involved in idolatrous rituals. Verse 19, what do I imply then?

That food offered to idols is anything? Or that an idol is anything? No. I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? Well back in chapter 8, Paul has already said that an idol has no real existence. But in light of this text, the idol certainly is not neutral. Because Paul says the participation with temple sacrifices in person or through eating the food that has been sacrificed to the idol is actually to be offering allegiance and false worship to demons. There is an occultic presence and reality that goes along with idolatry.

It’s really serious. And God’s people getting mixed up with idolatrous false worship involving demons was nothing new. Paul is alluding to Deuteronomy 32 here. 32, 16, and 17. They stirred him, that’s God, to jealousy with strange gods. With abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods. To gods they had never known. To new gods they had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. Listen to what Kim Riddlebarger says about this. It’s very helpful. He says there is an occult dimension. So real people who sacrifice to idols which are nothing are actually sacrificing to the demons themselves. Therefore, to share in the eating of food sacrificed to idols which are nothing is to form a bond of fellowship with demons which are real. Idol worshippers do have fellowship with demons when they eat food sacrificed to idols. This is why someone who is in fellowship with Jesus Christ and who participates in

the Lord’s Supper must not continue to participate in the things which go on in pagan sacrifices. This is why we, as the people of God, must understand that we belong to the one who bought us with his own blood. Now about demons, C.S. Lewis wrote this. He said there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. Demons, he called them devils. One is to disbelieve their existence. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist and a magician with the same delight. That’s fascinating. Demons are created beings. We know they were created by the end of the sixth day, originally good but now are fallen angels. They are highly intelligent and they know the human race really well. They have been dealing with us for millennia.

They are far more powerful than we. Their boss is Satan. And while they cannot possess a Christian, they can oppress a Christian. It appears that their primary work is deception and tempting humans to sin and deny God. They especially like to incite false worship, especially anything that denies the truths of our Bible. Jesus has defeated them. He has put them to open shame, but until he returns, they have a realm in which they are allowed to work. Do not play around with this realm. It has left many in ruin. This is why Paul says, I do not want you to be participants with demons. Now let’s close looking at verse 22. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? We know that God prohibited idolatry and false worship in the second commandment. Shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven

The Call to Flee

above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth? You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. God can be provoked. And the rhetorical question at the end of verse 22 obviously doesn’t require an answer because the Corinthians know, as we know, God has unlimited strength and power. Some in Corinth, they were actually arguing that they had the right to attend pagan feasts and were even encouraging others that it was okay. And Paul says, no, you cannot attend to the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Cannot accept God and his blessings and also practice idolatry.

Now, you may think, as some of the Corinthians did, that you are strong enough in your walk to come in here every Sunday and partake of the Lord’s supper and then turn around during the week and dabble with things that you know God doesn’t approve of. Live your life ignoring idols that you must kill. And that is foolish and that is sinful thinking that can provoke God. And I don’t know what those things are that you may be prone to get too close to in your life. Those things that are idols in your heart or that are tempting you to sin, but you should know that there is hope and there is mercy in the gospel. In the second commandment that I just read, God says he will show steadfast love. God has mercy for idolaters who will turn away, confess, turn away from their sin.

And there are so many things that can be in and of themselves really good things and we turn them into idols. We’re so good at that. Your comfort, having control, your health, your marriage, having the highest paying job, the newest wardrobe, the best vacations, leisure time, all the various status symbols and products marketed to us daily, the list is just endless of the things we can turn into idols. And may I encourage you, sit down in the next day or two and take an honest assessment of where you are with this subject. This is just way too important to ignore. And as I said earlier, the worst and most obvious idol for most of us is self. And it will take a lot of help from the Holy Spirit to dethrone yourself. You first need to be honest, you need to confess this to God.

He already knows, you’re not hiding anything from Him. Then you need to see God’s love for you in Christ. Coming to die for your forgiveness, to be raised again for your justification and defeat death. And this must be more beautiful to you than your idols. The love of Christ must be so compelling that you will not even consider any allegiance to an idol, be it yourself or the idols that our world flaunts in our faces constantly. This is a deception that is trying to steer us from God and His truth. And being entangled with idols makes you powerless for ministry. Do you have people in your life who are close enough to you and who know you well enough to help you see where you may be feeding idols? Because this is where our one body that is many yet one comes into play. Get people in your life who will walk with you through this wicked world and be able

to tell you what you need to hear, even as you become able to tell them what they need to hear. And we must pray for each other. We must pray and ask God to expose the things in our heart that we must deal with, no matter how painful. It will be painful to deal with your idols. But remember, this is common to us all. We’re all in this together. Then it will be, as Charles Spurgeon once said, when we deal seriously with our sin, God will deal gently with us. Let us pray.