Sermon – Lent 3 – "Abuse Is Intolerable" – 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 – 3/11/07
March 12th, 2007Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.
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Abuse is a terrible thing. Abuse is wrong use. Drug abuse is the wrong use of drugs. Sexual abuse is the wrong use of sex. Verbal abuse is the wrong use of words. Physical abuse, emotional abuse is wrong use of someone’s body or emotions. None of these things are bad in and of themselves. Drugs, sex, words, bodies, emotions – all good things, gifts from God, to be used and treated in certain ways, according to their God-given purpose. When they’re not, its abuse.
I’m sure that we would all agree that abuse is intolerable. It cannot be tolerated. I’m sure that we would all agree that the abuser must stop abusing and must begin to use rightly – in the way and for the purpose for which God intended. I suspect that abuse is something that we all would agree that we feel quite strongly about.
Did you know that even the grace and love of God can be abused? The grace and love of God can be used wrongly. God’s grace and love is abused whenever it’s used as permission to sin. Whenever someone thinks to himself, ‘I know this is wrong, I know this is not the way God wants me to live and I know that this is not the way that God wants me to use the good gifts He’s given me, but – I know He’ll pardon me and take away all of my sins – so, what the heck, I’m just going to do it,’ that’s abuse.
It is to this abusive attitude toward the grace and love of God that Paul addresses the portion of his letter to the Corinthians that is our epistle this morning. There is open and blatant idolatry and sexual immorality going on among members of the congregation, of which everyone is aware and yet the congregation accepts it without criticism. The Corinthians think that they can live in open and unrepentant sin without judgment because they’re baptized and they receive the Lord’s Supper. They are abusing the grace and love of God and no one seems to be bothered and no one seems to think God is bothered by this either. Or, if they do, they don’t love their fellow members very much, because no one cares enough to challenge the abusers to quit their abuse before it’s too late.
The only proper way to deal with this kind of abuse is to preach the terror of the law, which clearly shows the destiny of those who would abuse God’s grace and love in this way. The misuse of the grace and love of God as freedom to sin leads to death – for God will not tolerate abuse.
Paul gives the Corinthians a very clear example of God’s intolerance for abuse by the example of how God responded to the Israelite’s abuse of His grace and love in the past. “I want you to know, brothers, 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 drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”
What Paul is saying here is that the Israelites, God’s chosen people, were baptized. They were baptized in the baptismal font of the Red Sea and God was present with them in the pillar of cloud.
Not only were they baptized but they also enjoyed spiritual food and drink along their journey to the Promised Land. The food was the bread that came down from heaven – the manna in the wilderness. The drink was the water that came from the Rock and that Rock, Paul says, was Christ Himself. Food and drink from God. Paul calls it, “spiritual food.” Food for the spirit, food for the hungry heart and drink for the thirsty soul.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s baptism Old Testament style and the Lord’s Supper before it was called “the Lord’s.” Paul is telling the Corinthians that their forefathers in faith had the sacraments of Baptism and Supper just like they do. So, how did it go for them?
Paul says, “Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” In fact, only 2 out of the 1.2 million who left Egypt by God’s great deliverance, who were baptized in the Sea and who ate the spiritual food, entered the Promised Land. Only Joshua and Caleb. All the rest, Paul says, “were overthrown.” They were thrown over, scattered over the desert and never received the promise.
And then Paul lists reasons why: these baptized children of God who ate and drank spiritual food, practiced idolatry and sexual immorality. They tested the Lord and complained about the Lord’s service. And how did God respond to their abuse of His grace? On one occasion, “twenty three thousand of them fell in a single day…” On another, they were “destroyed by serpents.” On another, they were “destroyed by the Destroyer.”
To this, Paul warns, “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” “Look what happened to them,” he says. “Don’t think that your baptism gives you the freedom to sin or makes your sin acceptable before God. They were baptized and ate the holy food and God struck them down. What makes you think that God will treat your abuse any differently?”
“Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” When the baptized, communing Christian is indifferent and accepting of his sin, its using the good gifts God has given you wrongly and that’s abuse. And make no mistake about it, God does not tolerate abuse.
Now, if you think that this is just cranky, old fashioned, behind the times, Paul, then listen to Ezekiel. “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses… the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins. Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered but in his injustice that he has done he shall die.” (Ez.33:12-13).
And if you think Ezekiel was just one of those intolerant religious nuts who was too prudish to accept the new morality of a more enlightened age, then listen to Jesus, who says, “Unless you repent, you too will likewise perish.”
Indifference to sin and acceptance of evil is the way of the world but not the way of the Christian. Through holy Baptism, God has called you out of this world to and to Himself, into a new life of grace and love, that we would be gracious and love God with all our heart and soul and mind and love our neighbor as ourselves. Or, as Paul puts it to the Corinthians, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17).
Just as Paul makes the connection between Israel’s abuse of God’s grace in the desert to the Corinthian’s complacency with their sin, so, the painful reality is that we must make the same connection to ourselves. We baptized, communion Christians have our idols that we put our trust in and base our hopes upon and we’re so indifferent to the commandment “you shall have no other gods besides Me.” We are so accepting of sexual immorality eventhough we know that we are using our bodies and sexuality wrongly. We test the Lord with our, “if you’ll just do this for me Lord, then I’ll do that for you.” We grumble about the Lord’s service complaining that He hasn’t give us what we really want and what we think we need. “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.” “Unless you repent, you too will likewise perish.”
And what could be more contrary to the will of God than that you should perish. Listen to Ezekiel. “As I live, declares the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”
Listen to Paul. “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.” The way of escape has been provided. Repent! Receive the forgiveness of all of your sins rightly. Receive the Lord’s Supper rightly. Live in your baptism rightly.
Listen to Ezekiel. “Again, though I say to the wicked ‘you shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right… he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him.” (Ez.33:14-16).
Listen to Jesus who reveals the desires of His heart to you in the parable of the fruitless fig tree that the owner of the vineyard wants cut down. “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good…” Look how patient He is with you.
Where would any of us be right now if Christ had not prayed for us, “Sir, let it alone this year also?” We would all have been cut down a long time ago. But we have been given a time of grace that He may dig around us and fertilize us with His Word and Sacraments, because it is the His desire that we be saved. This is the fruit that He earnestly desires to see.
Listen to Peter. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should repent.” (2 Peter 3:9).
Listen to Paul, “Behold, now is the favorable time, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2).
“Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.”
Amen.
P.S. If the Lord is this patient with us and willing to nurture us with His forgiveness and love until the fruit of repentance and faith appears that we would not perish but live, we should also be patient with one another – willing to nurture one another with our forgiveness and love until the fruit of repentance and faith appears.
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» The Significance of the Transfiguration of Our Lord – Matthew 17:1-9
» Sermon – Pentecost 5 – "Sufficient Grace, Sufficient Power" – 2 Corinthians 12:1-9 – 7/5/09
» Preparing To Receive The Lord's Supper
