You’re Not As Unique As You Think | April 8, 2026

Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.

The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist

Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us

or contact us at mylibertybaptist.org or just

look us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this

message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.

First Corinthians in chapter #10.

Say, pastor, why are you in the Word so soon?

And the question is, well, why can't we be in the Word so soon?

Amen. It's church.

And that's what we're doing here tonight.

And so First Corinthians chapter #10 we are going to have a short

meeting after church and to be a different meeting than normal.

Normally we have a business meeting.

We ask those who are not members to be able to depart.

And that's not the case this evening.

And so we're going to ask you to stay behind just for a few

moments. But we are in First Corinthians

chapter. #10 and you may remember we started through this

section of First Corinthians chapter #7 chapter 8 chapter #9

now we're chapter #10 and I mentioned what we're going to

get in this part and we're going to go 1 chapter a time.

How do you remember that? A few weeks ago?

Oh good, nobody remembers. So I guess I don't need to

continue. But so a few weeks ago we're do

1 chapter a time. We did that with Chapter 7.

We did that with chapter 8. Kind of got a little bogged down

in chapter #9 took two weeks to be able to go through it.

And now in chapter 10, I just looked at it in study and said,

you know what, it's going to take more than one week and

we're just going to take what we need.

You know, as a pastor, my desire is sometimes to be able to get

us to a certain destination. And for me, the destination to

make sure that we get through First Corinthians as the Lord

allows us. But there is also the part where

it's not as much about the destination, but about what we

learn on the way to the destination.

Really the issue is not, hey, let's get through First

Corinthians as fast as we can. The issue is, are we going to

learn what God has for us in First Corinthians?

I hope that's the case. So as that we are only going to

get through just the first 11 verses or so here tonight from

first Corinthians chapter #10 now Paul is going to be talking

to people of Corinth about their sinful predicament.

You say, what is that sinful predicament?

Well, pretty much everything we've read from chapter 1 to

Chapter 9. The church at Corinth is a very

worldly church, a church. The church at Corinth is so far

away from that which God has called them to do that Paul's

had to do a lot of readjusting, has he?

This is not just talking about spiritually, just changing the

drapes. This is not spiritually just

trying to make a few changes here and there.

There's a wholesale change that the people of Corinth need to

make because they were very far away from that which God has

called them to do their fighting with one another.

They're allowing sin to run rampant within the church.

Not only allowing it to run rampant within the church, but

they're kind of proud of the fact of how open minded they

are, allowing sin to run rampant through the church.

And so there's all these things that are taking place.

They're suing one another and taking one other court, not even

able to handle the most basic of issues like believers ought to

be, but rather going to ungodly magistrates asking them to fix

the problems that they can't fix by themselves within the body.

And so Paul is going to address these issues here again in

chapter #10 and he's going to address really the issue of

eating meats to idols again later on, not in the text that

we're reading tonight, but later on.

But he's going to set the table this evening with this idea of

taking thoughts from the Old Testament, taking teachings from

the Old Testament, and reminding the people of Corinth of who

they are and what they need to be by looking at the example of

the Old Testament. Now, maybe you're here tonight

and you thought, how relevant is the Old Testament to us in our

daily life today? Maybe some would say, well,

isn't it just important we read the New Testament?

It's even important that we read the Old Testament.

The Old Testament has gone away now that Jesus Christ has died

on the cross. And my answer to that is, I

don't know where you heard that, but you certainly haven't heard

it at Liberty Baptist Church. Because the Bible tells us to be

aware of the whole council of God.

That from cover to cover that we are to know the word of God and

to allow it to influence our life to be more like Christ.

And so we're going to see that here tonight in First

Corinthians chapter #10 And so you remain seated.

We'll begin reading in verse #1 where it says, Moreover,

brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant.

Ignorant how? That all our fathers were under

the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and we're all

baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

And did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all

drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank that drank of

that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was

Christ. But with many of them God was

not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things were our examples to the intent.

We should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

Neither be idolaters, as were some of them.

As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose

up to play. Neither let us commit

fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day.

Three and 20,000 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them

were also tempted and were destroyed.

Of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of

them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer.

Now all these things happen unto them, foreign samples, and they

are written for admonition upon whom the ends of the world are

coming. We'll stop in our reading right

there. You know, we have a tendency to

think, and I think our generation thinks this.

And I say our generation, I'm speaking broadly, knowing that

there technically are many generations who speak here

tonight. But if I was to broadly say our

generation, I do believe that often times it's the fact that

we believe that we are the most unique generation that ever

existed. Like we are the ones that are

going through the most hardship of all the people in known

civilization, that the hardship of hardships really belongs to

us here today. Have you noticed this?

This is just the way of our human condition.

I don't know if it's because we want to feel more special, if

it's because we want to feel more important than those who

have gone on before, but this is always the case.

Every four, four years, what do we hear?

This is the most important election of our lifetime.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hearing that every four

years that they drum us up into this place of saying it's the

most important election of our lifetime.

Why? Because, well, it's the next

election, I guess. But this is what is always said.

Every generation of young people that goes before, the generation

that is after them says these are the most rebellious people

I've ever seen. That is always the case, is that

you could say that about the younger people in the 70s and

the 60s and you could say it about the younger people today.

That's always the case. These young people that are

coming up and usually the older people that are saying that

about the younger people weren't so great when they were younger

themselves, but yet the case is said that we are the unique.

Well, we've never seen young people like that are out there

right now. The moral decline that is found

in society is always spoken of as in this certain generation is

more unique than it's ever been in any other generation.

People don't work like they used to.

Nobody keeps their word anymore and the list goes on and on and

on. We talk about it, but every

generation before talked about it, about the generation that

was before them. Now listen, I want to be careful

here tonight. There's some things that I

understand because I could see some of you, the wheels are

turning a little bit this evening because you're thinking,

pastor, are you not saying that things aren't getting worse and

worse? And the answer is, well, yes,

things are getting worse and worse.

Why do I say that? Well, because the Bible says it.

Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 13 says, But evil men and

2 Timothy 3:13

seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being

deceived. There's no doubt about the fact

that things are getting worse, or as the old preacher once

said, worser and worser, that things are getting worse out

there all the time. And it shouldn't surprise us

because this has been told to us in the word of God.

No, people aren't following the Lord in the way that they used

to. There was movements of God in

the past where there were great revivals even in this nation of

which we're not seeing the same stirrings as we did in other

times. I wouldn't argue that here

tonight sin abounds in more vengeance avenues and avenues

than it ever has before. We can't argue that this evening

that sin is more easily accessible than it would be in

maybe any other generation. These aren't the types of things

that I'm trying to tell you tonight.

But what I'm really trying to say is this.

The problems of this life remain unchanged over 6000 or so years

of human history. That the real problems of life

that we deal with remain unchanged.

Sure. Has sin changed its wrapping

paper? Yes.

Has sin changed the way it presents itself?

Absolutely. But is sin still sin?

Absolutely. And we are not so unique in this

generation that we are dealing with things in a way that no one

else has dealt with it before. Certainly they are coming at us

in different forms and different forums, but the issues of life

remain the same. People were worried 6000 years

ago, people were worried 2000 years ago, and people are

worried today. People got angry 6000 years ago,

people got angry 2000 years ago, People got angry or get angry

today. This is the human condition.

This is what we see. And so we talked about this for

a moment. We asked ourselves, do you deal

with sin? And do you suffer through

trials? Are are you tempted?

And if the answer is yes, which it ought to be yes.

That we have to remind ourselves we're not nearly as unique as we

think that we are. The issues of dealing with sin,

dealing with temptation, the trials of life, that we're not

as special as we think we are. Say, Pastor, that doesn't sound

very encouraging at all. In fact, sounds like you're just

talking down to us. And the answer is yes, that's

exactly what I'm doing. I'm talking, No, I'm not doing

that. I'm not doing that at all.

It ought to be encouraging to us tonight, and This is why.

Because the issues of life that we deal with are addressed very

clearly and addressed very plainly in God's holy word that

the issues of life that we think cannot.

Be relevant because the word Internet's not in the Bible,

because the word. Nicotine's not in the Bible

because social media is not in the Bible because.

None of these issues are in the Bible.

How helpful? But this old, dry, dusty book,

how helpful could the Old Testament be?

Don't you know Leviticus is in their pastor and numbers, a

whole book of people counting things.

And well, it's not the old book, but it's a lot of the book.

But anyway, is it important? Yes.

Is it helpful? Absolutely.

And we find that because we are not so unique as we think we

are, that the issues of life, no matter what comes our way, can

be found. Diagnosed and helped by what we

see in the word of God. So as Paul looks at Corinth's

present, he wants to hearken to Israel's past.

And so if we were pretending tonight that there were slides

on this. TV, which they are not, not

because of the sound men, but because of the unsound pastor #1

would be this. You're supposed to laugh at

that. Number one, is this looking at

Israel's past example. Number one is this.

Looking at Israel's past example, in the first few

verses, Paul makes an appeal to this largely Jewish church.

Or rather, it's largely Gentile church.

Excuse me, a church that maybe not as well versed in the

history of the Jews as the Jews would be, but he makes an appeal

to them about to them to look back at Jewish history.

And as such, he references several events we're familiar

with. Just in the beginning, from

verse one to verse #6 Paul mentioned several different

things he says in verse one. Moreover, brethren, I would not

that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under

the cloud and all passed through the sea.

What is Paul doing? Well, he starts by explaining

God's goodness to his people and he says, don't you remember when

you passed under the cloud? Don't you remember when you

passed through the sea? Now of course we understand

passing through the sea would have been the experience of the

Red Sea. When Israel was there up against

the Red Sea, the Egyptians were hard behind them, ready to

pounce on them if you will. But yet God held the Egyptians

back, held the water up. Israel went through as on dry

ground, and as soon as Moses said the word by the name of the

Lord, what happened? All the waters came back and the

Egyptian army was drowned. But it wasn't just that that

Paul references here, but rather the fact that they were under

the cloud. Now, maybe in the past you've

seen pictures, depictions about the pillar of cloud by day and

the pillar of fire by night. You know what I'm talking about

in the wilderness, how they went through and the pillar of cloud

went before them by day and the pillar of fire went before them

at night. I think sometimes our mindset of

what the pillar of cloud actually is, is actually a

little bit off. And the reason why is because

Proverbs, or rather Psalm 105 verse 39 says he spread a cloud

Psalms 105:39

for a covering and fire to give light in the night.

I believe was there a pillar? Yes.

You know why I believe it? Because the Bible says it.

Exodus chapter 13 says so. But I believe it was not just a

Exodus 13 · chapter mention

pillar that was just up in the middle of the air, but rather

from that pillar extended large amounts of cloud covering.

Now why would that be important? Well, because Israel was in the

desert. I don't know about you, but I'm

not spending a lot of time in the desert.

But I do know this. I've spent some time in Southern

California where the temperature was 115° and people say, well,

it's not the heat, it's the humidity.

With 115, it's the heat. I don't care if there's 0

humidity when your shoes are melting on your feet.

I don't tell me it's not the heat, it's the humidity because

that's the way that it is. Could you imagine the Israelites

for 40 years out in that intense type of heat?

Yet what did God do? He not only used that pillar,

but I believe extending from that pillar a cloud that would

overspread the people of Israel to keep them temperate during

the day and then warmth during those very cold desert nights

that also could exist. What am I saying?

That God took care of them, sometimes even in ways that we

don't even think about and that we even comprehend.

Do you think God gave up on the Israelites for 40 years?

God never gave up on the Israelites.

Did God give up on you? But we've given up on him

plenty. He hasn't given up on us.

It says that they pass through the sea.

It says in verse #2 that they were baptized, They were

immersed passing through the water unto Moses.

And the fact of the matter was that they were passing through

the water. And as such, they identified

with Moses in the way that we could say that as we are

immersed in baptism, who do we identify with?

Jesus Christ? Romans chapter 6.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

You can read the first few verses, explain that to you

quite well. And so Paul says, listen, God

has taken care of the people of Israel over and over and over

again. But that's not all it says in

verse #3 they ate the same spiritual meat.

What kind of meat are we talking about?

Certainly we think of meat and we think of the quail, but

oftentimes the Bible talks about meat.

It's also talking about what we would call meal at the same

time, a bread. What type of spiritual bread

would have fallen from heaven for 40 years?

It tasted like wafers and honey and coriander seed.

What would that be? Well, that would have been the

mana. What was incredible about mana

as they looked at the mana that was.

On the ground and they said what is it?

And that's why it's called mana, because in the Hebrew what is it

is the word mana. So literally they go, what is

it? And every day for 40.

Years they're eating. What is it?

And they baked it, and they fried it, and they made it every

different way possible. But God sustained them through

that blessed mana for 40 years. Exodus 16, verse 35.

Exodus 16:35

And the children of Israel did eat mana 40 years until they

came to a land inhabited. They did eat mana until they

came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.

They drank of the same spiritual drink, it says in verse #4 for

they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them.

And that rock was Christ. Boy, there's so much that I

could just really get into right there.

For those who say, well, Jesus Christ just appeared in the New

Testament. Jesus Christ is all over the

word of God. Jesus Christ, was that wrong

first. Smitten and the water came out.

Second to be spoken. To But what did Moses do?

He smote the rock a second time. By the way, the rock Jesus

Christ is not to be smitten twice.

He was smitten once. Why is that important?

Well, because those who partake of the Eucharist believe they

are crucifying Christ afresh every single time they receive

it. But it's crucified once and then

spoken to the rock. And it says here that that rock

is what they drank from the water.

And I didn't even realize this until recently, but Paul builds

up on a rabbinical tradition that said Israel was supplied

with water by the same rock throughout all the wilderness.

That wherever they went, they literally picked up the rock,

took it with them, and wherever they went, they were supplied

with water. Now I can't prove that to be

true, but it does say this. Wherever they went, they drank

of the water and the water was Christ.

So whether that water followed them along, it carved its own

path through the desert and they followed that, or whether the

rabbi's would have the the priest would have lifted up that

rock and taken it wherever it needed to go.

You said what must have been a big rock.

Listen, God can make water come out anywhere.

Do you mean water come out of a jawbone of a donkey?

Are you kidding me? He doesn't need it to be a rock

that's so big that looks like New Hampshire granite.

You know what he needs? Thanks, Rick.

You know what he needs? He needs to do whatever he deems

necessary and supply the people with their water.

I don't know if you know this, but Israel was a mess.

I don't know if you're aware of this, but God was good to them

despite the fact they were a mess because a lot of what took

place that we just read happened after they got themselves into

trouble and not before. John 73738 Going back to the

living water, imagine this, Jesus in the last day of the

feast stood up and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let

him come unto me and drink. He that believeth all me, as a

Scripture has said, said out of his belly shall flow rivers of

living water, proclaiming himself to be that living water

from the rock that was smitten. And God was good to the people

of Israel. But like I said, despite his

goodness, they didn't do good. Look at verse 5.

But with many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were

overthrown in the wilderness. Well, how did they sin?

Well, we'll see that in a moment because it's of great relevance.

But it's a reminder to us just in looking at this.

But with many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were

overthrown in the wilderness. Let's read verse 6.

If I'm going to stop you, don't go too far.

Now these things were our examples.

Stop. Paul is saying everything I just

told you and what is about to come.

But everything he just told you is our example because even

though God was good to them, they weren't good to God.

So Paul starts right here. And he says this, you need to

know what happened in the past. You can read on later verse 6

and verse #11 as well. We'll look at that in a minute.

But you need to know what goes on in the past because it will

help you avoid making the mistakes of the future.

You ever heard this before? Those who fail to learn from

history are doomed to repeat it. And people that think the Old

Testament or even the Bible itself is irrelevant to life

today are missing out on thousands of years of learned

experience of people that didn't love God and some that loved God

and then didn't do what God told them to do.

And also of the experience of those who did love God and

followed God and gave us a path of which to follow so we can

succeed in this Christian life. We were in Scotland a few weeks

ago and. We went to a place called

Sterling, Scotland, and there was a battle there from William

Wallace. And no, I'm not talking about a

movie, all right. But there was a real man named

William Wallace who fought in a battle called the Battle of

Sterling Bridge. And what's amazing about going

to a place as old as Scotland? You know, Easton's 300 years

old. And I thought that was old till

I went over there. And they've got like

toothbrushes that are older than that over there.

And actually, I think about probably not.

But anyway, we stood on the bridge of where the battle took

place. Now it wasn't the same bridge

because the battle was in 1298. But this, this bridge was new.

It was built in 1400s and we stood on this bridge.

And you can see how the battle took place.

What William Wallace did was he caused this large contingent of

those from England to pass on a narrow bridge.

And then on the other side, they got caught in marshy ground and

then someone came behind and took the pins out of the bridge.

To be able to separate the groups from one another and

William Wallace won and the and the Scottish people win a huge

victory against the people of England that day in narrowing

them down and then getting them on the other side.

Say, Pastor, why is that important?

Well, there was a battle hundreds of years before called

the Battle of Thermopylae in the Greco Persian War.

And you may not know what I'm talking about, but you may have

heard of the Spartans who ended up getting a much larger

contingent to go into a very small space and ended up not

winning the battle, but really winning the day because they

were able to keep that larger contingent at Bay for a longer

period of time. What are you saying, Pastor?

You can learn some things from history.

Ask Hitler about going to Russia in winter.

He could have learned from Napoleon.

We could go on and on this evening just about history, just

about military history, but I'm not here to talk to you about

military history, as much as I love history.

No, I love this word more. And I'm here to tell you tonight

there are some people who have gone on before us, including the

people of Israel who showed us some things to do and that

showed us some things not to do. What do we need to do?

Follow their example of what we should do.

Follow their example of what we should avoid.

Get in the word and know what this word says because they are

an example for us. So we're going to look back at

the past of Israel. But #2 Paul also says this.

He wants us to look at our present efforts.

Look at our present efforts. Pick back up again in verse 6

where it says now these things are examples to the intent.

What we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.

Now Paul's going to hear in this next point present some things

that Israel did wrong. He talked about all the

blessings that they had. He says despite this, there were

some things that they did wrong. Now in my Bible I have in

brackets here, the word should not.

Now you know, if you go into the Greek and you look at that word,

should not you know what it means?

Should not means don't do it, OK?

Don't let somebody try to talk to you out of what this means

says don't do it. When it comes the issue of lust,

don't do it now. What's the first word of verse

#7 Can you say that out loud? What's the first word of verse

#8 What's the first word of verse #9 What's the first word

of verse #10 Say, pastor, isn't your job to talk right now?

No, but I like giving a rest and let you all doing it together.

All right, should. Not neither.

Neither, neither, neither. I have those old bracket in my

Bible. Why is that?

Because there's some things that God says.

The people of Israel should not have done.

They shouldn't have done this, neither should they have done

this, neither should they have done this, and on and on it

goes. Well, what should they have not

done? Don't lust after evil things as

they also lusted to. Verse #7 Neither be adulterers.

Verse #8 Neither let us commit fornication.

Verse #9 Neither let us tempt Christ.

Verse 10 Neither murmur ye says they shouldn't have done these

things. Did they do those things in the

wilderness? They did them in spades.

Why do you think they marched around for 40 years?

They did it before it caused them to go for 40 years, and

they did it during the 40 years they were disobedient.

Now, considering the fact that the people of Israel were

wandering around the wilderness somewhere around 1300 years or

so before Jesus Christ walked this earth in His incarnation,

let me ask yourself, let's ask ourselves this question.

We're looking at maybe 3300 years of history between US and

the people of Israel. That's that's just an

estimation, but let's just say it's a long time.

Do you think people deal with lust today?

Do you think people deal with idolatry?

Today you think fornication is a problem, Today do.

You think tempting Christ is a problem today?

I think murmuring is a problem today.

You know, it's interesting. Paul's not writing this to us.

He's writing this to Corinth. Let's remind ourselves of who

this is being written to. It doesn't say First Liberty

chapter 10. You know, I understand who this

is being addressed to tonight is very relevant for us.

I'm not trying to take that away, but I'm talking about the

person, the people that was written to was the people at

Corinth that there was the people of Israel.

They did these things and then about 1300 years later there's

people in Corinth. What are they doing?

They're doing these things. And we look about not quite 2000

years later and what do we see? People are still doing these

things. We're not as special as we think

we are. Does it look?

Differently. Sure it does.

Is it more accessible? We could argue yes, but are

these still the root? Issues of life for our flesh.

The answer is yes, and as such the word Internet may not be in

your Bible. Actually, if it isn't.

Your Bible. You got the wrong Bible.

The word smartphone is not in your Bible.

The word nicotine is not in your Bible.

But the. Issues of life, no matter what

you look for, are all found in this blessed book.

It was relevant for the people of Israel.

It was relevant for the people of Corinth and is relevant for

us today in the present. Do people deal with lust today?

Well, that's the first one listed.

Absolutely. By the way, the people of Israel

were lustful after the men of Israel, lustful after women.

That was an issue of bail peor, but they also fell in their

lusts to quail. You say pastor who lusts after

quail. Well, the Bible tells us that

they were had this inordinate affection because they didn't

want bread anymore. That came from God.

And they said, boy, oh, man, we're in Egypt.

We ate well. Yeah, right.

You ate real well. That's why you're slaves.

This isn't my message. But sin distorts your thinking

about everything. That's why you can look at

something that is a substance that will hurt your life and you

say this makes my life better. That's why you can look at

something that you know could destroy marriage and say it

could make it better. That's why you could look at an

action or a thought process and think that it will make you

wiser, but it actually makes you more dense spiritually, because

this is what sin does. It distorts what reality is.

And they look at this, the idea of having quail as something

that's remarkable because they had so much food in Egypt and

they didn't have a lot of food in Egypt.

That's why they're crying to God to get them out of Egypt.

Amongst everything else, they lusted after those things.

They were idolaters After the calf, they were fornicators.

As I mentioned at Bale Pure with Moab, remember Balaam couldn't

curse them and Balaam found an end around and that was this he

told the people Moab try to get your women that don't love God

to get together and carnal relationships with the men of

Israel and it did the trick and men's hearts were turned from

God. They tempted the Lord.

Numbers 21, verse 5 And the Lord and the people spake against

Numbers 21:5

God, against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us up

out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?

For there is no bread, neither is there any water.

And our soul. Lo, this, this light bread.

After God did all of that, they kept saying, God, what are you

going to do next? That sound familiar to anybody?

OK, it does, because nobody said anything good.

Let me come down here for a minute.

God's been good to you. Amen.

Let me just ask you this, how many times He has to prove

Himself to you now? How many more times does He have

to prove Himself to you? We get to the point that we're

not careful, we're tempting Christ.

How many more things does He have to do for you?

Well, God, if you just do this one more thing, the fact He

saved your soul ought to be enough for me to save, serve Him

for a lifetime. But I'm worried about how much I

have in my bank. And if He doesn't come through

the way I do, the way I want, then He's not good enough.

That's tempting. Christ's friend say, well, well,

Christ isn't here. Well, he wasn't there with

Israel. He was there and he's here and

murmuring. Murmuring.

You know God killed more people from murmuring than anything

else in the Bible. God killed more people from

murmuring. Than any other thing else in the

Bible. You can look it up.

See I thought it would be something else.

And if I'm wrong, which I know it's hard to believe, but if I

was wrong, don't tell me, it's not high on the list.

Depends on how you reckon it. But I would say that it is #1 if

not very high on the top, but we think of it as just something

that's very minimal and very small.

But God looks at it differently. So what do we see here?

They were dealing with it all those years ago, and we're still

dealing with it today. The question is why does this

generation of Christians think we're exempt from these issues?

And I would even go a little bit farther and say this because it

makes clear here that God says don't do this, neither do this,

neither this, neither this, neither this.

So why does this generation of Christian also often think, and

I'm talking in generalities here.

What is this generation often think that we are exempt from

the holy living that God commands us to have in the

Bible. Yeah, that response is why it

doesn't get preached normally, because nobody likes it.

My flesh doesn't like hearing that.

My flesh doesn't want to say it because I know I'm going to have

to be accountable to it. But God says don't.

Do it. And he said it to people.

The Old Testament don't do it. He said it to people in the New

Testament. Corinth, you shouldn't do it

either. And he's saying to us today,

don't do it. Be a different people.

A peculiar people, Titus, chapter 2 zealous of good works,

Titus 2 · chapter mention

that we ought to be different now.

The people of Israel were blessed.

Have you been blessed? Yes, the people of Israel were.

The people of God, by the way, I should mention, are still the

people of God. God's still working through

them, even though they don't follow him.

God's still working in his program through them.

But let me ask you this, are we also in one sense, the people of

God? We've been adopted in the

family, haven't we? If we've been blessed and we're

the people of God, just as they were blessed and they were the

people of God, and they fell far away, couldn't the same easily

be said of us if we're not careful?

God still cares about holy living.

There are people who say, well, let's just Pharisaical often

times, Liz, I'm not saying there can't be Pharisaical attitudes

out there and we need to avoid those because you know what?

Pharisaical attitudes are sin. It's also sin to be proud of

your holiness. Guess what?

You don't have as much to be proud of as you think you do.

We're just sinners saved by the grace of God, and we know who we

are, where we come from, and where we're going.

But we know it's not because of us, it's because of Him.

But if that could happen to the people of Israel, couldn't

happen to us. And if it happened to the people

of Israel, and God said they shouldn't have done it, and

Paul's looking at the people of Corinth and saying, you

shouldn't do it, where does that put us?

Well, we shouldn't do it either. So we see the past of Israel.

We see the present with their actions.

But #3 I also see this looking for our future escape.

Go down to verse #13 drop down to #13 Here's a verse that

you've heard before. And I tell you, put this in your

pocket right here. There hath no temptation taken

you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful that

that really goes back to going back to there.

I was about to go ahead. That cuts back to what we're

saying when you think you're the only one that's been having the

hard times. We've all had hard times.

No, I'm not trying to diminish the hardness that you've gone

through, but I will say this. You are not allowed to take the

hardness and the harshness of your life and use it as an

excuse to live life however you want to live it.

You're not allowed. And that's true whether you're

the one that dug yourself in the hole or whether someone else put

you in that hole and try to put the cover on top and lock it.

Either way, you are not entitled to act however you want because

you are the first person who's gone this way.

You're not that special, you know, I'm not saying you're not

special to the Lord. Don't.

Don't get weird on me here. I'm just saying you're not the

first person to go through these issues.

And that's not meant to be a slam.

That's meant to be a comfort, because you're not a pioneer

going down the Oregon Trail who's gonna end up dying with

dysentery. Some of you by a certain age

might understand what I'm talking about as a computer

game. But anyway, you're not the first

person, OK? It wasn't funny, I'll admit it,

all right? But you're not the first person

like a pioneer. There's a lot of people who've

gone before who have had very unique situations much like

yours. And Gods help them, He'll help

you. There's no temptation taking

you. But such as common to man, if

you If you only circled 4 words in your Bible, maybe this should

be it. But God is faithful.

If you only circle 4 words in your Bible, maybe it would be.

But God is faithful. It's an answer to a lot of

questions. I had someone on Sunday

afternoon asking me some hard questions.

And I'm not saying that I couldn't answer them.

I, I, I answered them the best I could from the Bible.

But I mean hard questions from life, you know, you know what I

mean. And really it comes down to this

much of what he was asking me. Do you believe that God is

faithful? Do you believe that he's

faithful? Because if you don't, then you

see in every shadow you see God as a sinister being, and instead

we in every crevice of his creation we see nothing but God

or God at work. This is what we see.

God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above

that which you're able, but will with the temptation also make a

way of to escape that you may be able to bear it.

Satan would destroy us in a minute if God let him.

Satan want to destroy Job, Satan want to destroy Peter.

But any temptation that we go through, any difficulty that we

go through that comes from the hand of Satan has been filtered

through the Father first. Do I understand all that?

I don't know that I do, but I do know this.

God is not unaware of what is taking place in this world.

There is nowhere where Satan is moving the chess pieces on this

world where he has put a check or checkmate on to God.

Where God said I didn't see that move.

God says I didn't, I was going to play it that way and look at

how he played it. No, God is in control and even

in your temptation He is so good.

He'll make a way of escape and He's good.

All temptation is filtered through our Heavenly Father and

we need not worried if a temptation can be handled.

You know, there are times that sin feels like an out of body

experience. There are times that you can go

through and make decisions and it almost feels like you're on

autopilot and you're just doing it and feeling it.

And it's almost like you just can't stop yourself.

And you wonder, is there a way to escape?

And I want you to know that even in the midst when you feel like

that, you can drop to your knees and there's a way to escape now,

help you with something. Usually the way of escape is

much easier when you're not that close to the sin.

You know, it's a lot easier to escape the bottle if you don't

go to the places that have the bottle.

It's a lot easier to escape using if you stay away from the

people who use. It's a lot easier to stay away

from anger if you avoid the triggers.

Now you say my triggers are people.

I know it's hard. I'm sorry for that.

You're going to you're going to struggle with that.

I know, I know. Yeah, maybe you could.

Maybe you can work remote the rest of your life.

I don't know. But even then, you could just

punch out your screen. So what are you going to do?

What I'm saying is the way of escape doesn't have to be at the

last possible moment. God, why didn't you come

through? Well, maybe God could say I gave

you about 100 chances on that off ramp and you didn't take any

of them. Now, is sin different today in

the sense that it comes to us differently?

Yes. The sin of pornography is so

much more pervasive than it was 50 years ago.

It's so much poor pervasive than it was 30 years ago.

Who could have ever imagined that you could find pornography

in your pocket? So what are you talking about,

this device? Who could have imagined?

And there's some who willingly put it in a child's hands and

not even know what they're doing.

I'm not, I'm not telling you when you should give your child

a cell phone. That's not my business.

I'm not the priest. You're home.

But we'll tell you this. I wouldn't have my child a

loaded gun and I sure wouldn't hand them a phone without some

kind of restrictions because I love them far too much.

That's right, pastor. They're they're, they're pure.

Their minds are pure. So should yours.

And there's some off ramps that God's helped you with.

Take them. When you miss one, take the next

one, take the off ramp. God's made a way of escape.

We're getting ready to close here.

There's more I could say. I don't know, maybe maybe you

feel like this this evening. You think pastor is good, but

it's, it's not really for me. Like it's like, like I'm beyond

this. I'm doing pretty well in my

spiritual life. You say, pastor, nobody thinks

like that. You'd be surprised.

Now, most people won't say that. They would never say it, but we

and I say we because if I'm not careful, it can come to me as

well. It's not that we say it, but we

just act in a way that seems above it all.

Did you hear me say we? I'm including myself in that.

We all could. The pride of the flesh could

just, I don't know. I mean, it's me.

I mean, pastor, I've been saved for a lot of years.

Or pastor, I'm better than I used to be.

You're better than what you used to be, but you ain't what God

wants you to be. If you think Christian is just

about getting better, you've missed the mark.

Christian is about being like Christ.

He didn't save you to make you better.

You could find a program to make you better.

God wants to transform you into the image of his Son.

But if you have that thought process, if you struggle with it

like I do, Paul, drop verse #12 in for us.

Wherefore let him that thinketh, he standeth.

Take heed lest default. Just when you think you know it,

you're about to find out you don't.

Just when you think you're in a place where you know better,

Satan says I got my boy right where I want him.

I got my girl right where I want her because she thinks she's

doing fine. That's the perfect way of

knowing she's not doing fine. He thinks he's doing great.

He's not doing great. If you're a senior St. with us

here tonight, if you've been saved a long time, it's easy to

hear these messages and just think, I mean, I don't really

deal with most of these things may remind you that when it

comes the issue of lust, when it comes the issue of fornication,

when it comes the issue of murmuring, when it comes the

issue of idolatry, far before the actions come the thoughts.

We'll prove that pastor. Well, may I introduce you to

Jesus Christ because he says when it comes the issue of

adultery, way before the physical act comes down to

thinking, right? Way before the issue of murder,

it comes down to thinking right. So maybe you look at that list

and you're thinking, well, I mean, I don't don't commit

fornication. I'm doing all right.

Lost is not that much of a problem for me.

I'm doing all right. I don't tempt Christ, so I'm

doing OK. Well, I don't deal with these

things. And you may not deal with those

things on the outside the way you think you do, but you better

watch the thought process and the heart because Satan can so

easily slip that in. And we think we're good.

We turn to first Peter chapter 1 very quickly.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

First Peter chapter one. I'm trying to decide if we

should turn there. We're going to turn there.

First Peter chapter 1, verse #13 because this could be you

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

tonight. I made mention of this a couple

weeks ago in the message that I preached about David having a

breakdown. But let's look at this further.

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind.

You know, girding up the loins of your mind.

Is that the looseness? The slackness is there?

Cinch it up. That's what girding the loins

would be. Get that slack to cinch it up.

Be sober, hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought

unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient

children, not fashioning yourselves according the former.

Lust, your ignorance, what does it say?

But as he which hath called you is holy, so in the same manner

I'm not adding that. I'm saying that's what that word

so is. In the same manner, be holy in

all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be holy,

for I am holy. You know, churches do the most

for the world when they look the least like the world, and people

do the most for the world when they look the least like the

world. People are watching.

People are watching. I could tell you stories of

people that I've interacted with that have come across church

members from Liberty Baptist Church that I've had to

apologize for that person being part of Liberty Baptist Church.

Hey, pastor, what are you talking about that someone says,

oh, I know someone from that church.

And now I can't say that I can believe everything they say

because that's just there's a word against what happened.

I will say this, shame on us if we're not the people God has

called us to be because there's the people that are counting on

us to be like Christ. Well, how do we know what to do?

Oh, to be like Christ. I need to look to the Gospels.

That's true. But you also look at the New

Testament and guess what? You should look at the Old

Testament. It was all written, for example.

It's all written for our help. And I'm not just telling you to

read your Bible. Hey, read your Bible.

That's good. Be a person of the Bible.

Let your thought process be of the Bible.

Let the Bible be a major part of your day.

Why? Because let this mind be in you,

which was also in Christ Jesus. We're not so special that we're

only ones going through trouble. It's gone through in the past.

It's gone through in the present.

Go through in the future. Let's see the road map that

God's given us in His Word. Thank you for listening to the

sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.

If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we

can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at

[email protected]. Or you can visit us this Sunday

at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.

May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.