How many of you know God cannot do corporately what He cannot do first through an individual? We are not as a group going to grow up into His image unless people first grow up into His image individually.
It's important that each of us grow up, ourselves. You are part of the church and you affect the whole.
1 Corinthians 10 gives reference to the children of Israel as they were delivered from Egyptian bondage and went into the Promised Land.
The children of Israel are a type or a picture of the church. The Canaan land, the Promised Land traditionally in the church has been pictured as Heaven somewhere. It could not be that! Canaan could not picture Heaven. The Promised Land is not some place way off in some far-off planet. The Promised Land is a Man. Jesus is our Promised Land.
Acts chapter 13 says that all of the promises made to the fathers were fulfilled when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. He's our Promised Land. Where we are headed is toward the fullness of a man. We are growing up. The church's objective is to grow up. I believe that we will come to the fullness of the measure of Christ in this earth. Do you believe that? We've got to express Jesus.
Up until now, we have only gone around saying things about Jesus, but there is coming an expression of Christ through the church that will perfectly express the Head. Praise God! That is where we are headed.
1 Corinthians chapter 10: 1 MOREOVER, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;The children of Israel were and are a type, a picture, of the church. If you are going to follow the book of Exodus through to the book of Joshua, you're going to see God's prophetic projection of how He is taking a people, maturing them, and leading them into the fullness of Christ.
2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
Here is one thing that we need to see. The objective of the church is more than just making each person a so-called Word-person. We saw where the children of Israel drank and fed on Jesus continually. They ate the manna and drank from the rock. They all had their healings, as the scripture reads, "there was not a feeble one among them."
So we look at this as Pastors, and think, "If we can get our people to feed on the Word and drink from the Word, they will make it." And then we look at verse...
5: But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.And that blows the lid off the whole traditional plan! Just get them working harder, praying harder, get in Sunday School, come to every service and teach them to pray and sing and shout. But some are still being overthrown in the wilderness!
God equips us with the gifts that we have in order to take us to a place of fullness. He is conforming us to become "in- Christed." To be in His image.
The world is tired of us talking about Jesus and not manifesting Jesus! We are at the end of the six thousand years and this is presently taking place. I don't know how to make you understand it any more clearly.
What do we need to do? We must yield to what Christ is doing in our spirits. He is changing us, and He is calling us. Many are not listening. It is time we get involved in what God's plans for us are.
7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.Notice what he is saying. He is saying these people who journeyed to the Promised Land did things that you might know what not to do! In other words, these things happened to them and we learn of principles through their disobedience. They missed God's will and it cost them the entrance into the Promised Land.
8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
9 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
10 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Every thing they did is important for us to study. He is saying, "Don't do what they did."
Then he said in verse 11
all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the (age) world are come.Could it be that God will have a people who, like these people, will go into the Promised Land? At the end of the age in which we live, God is going to have a people that will enter into their Spiritual Promised Land.
12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
What is our Promised Land? Lets see.
Verse 13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.Isn't that interesting? God will never allow anything to come against you that you are not able to withstand. You can stand against anything that comes. God will make a way to escape - - it's up to you to take the way of escape!
That tells you that the deaths of the children in the wilderness should not have happened. God made a way out for them. However, not all would look. Not all looked at the serpent on the pole that Moses lifted up to bring deliverance from the infliction of the serpents. Some died, because some didn't look. They thought the same thing that many think They say, "Look at the Cross again? That's silly. I heard all that before."
The cross is the origin of life. Look at the Cross and see Jesus. See where God, in Christ, destroyed what was destroying us. God said, "Look at the Cross and what happened there," not at the serpent that we look at so much.
Lets go on to verse 14
Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.Do you know where the idolatry of the church is? We have false images in our minds. Idolatry is having an image in your mind that is not true, that you are worshiping. It can be something that someone taught about you, instead of the way the Bible teaches about you. Or it can be fantasies that you think about all the time.
Verse 15
I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.He said, "Look at this judge what I say. We receive communion. Here's the piece of bread that is the type of the broken body of Christ. Here's the wine that is a type of the blood. We put these things in us and it's a communion. You and Christ are in divine union. And those elements of communion and every thing we do in the Church is to show you that you are in Him!"
16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
We take a person who makes Jesus his Lord and we baptize them. What's that all about? It is to show that somebody died and a new man lived. It's celebrating the death of the person they used to be. We bury them there in picture form, and then we raise a new one to the newness of life. That's a picture of what's happened.
Its the same way with communion. When you take the emblems, you are putting inside of you pictures of His death. You are partaking of the bread of the broken body. How many of you know that you become what you eat? You identify and you grow with that!
Here's the problem. Christ's work on Calvary and your reception of that is a complete work. It's a finished work. You don't need more of Jesus, you need less of you. How do I get less of me? The cross was God's way of doing away with the old me. So when I take these emblems of the death of Christ and put them into me, that is picturing my death. It's getting rid of the old "me" in picture form.
Here's what he says next and then we will go on.
Look at verse 16 again,
16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?We eat the bread that Jesus said was His body in John 6. This is what happens you are becoming, you are growing up into Him in all things. You are partaking, you are becoming. The object in any message is not to just give you that message but to make you into that message.
17 For we being (here's the Promised Land picture) many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
You hear that Jesus was baptized in the Holy Spirit and if you really hear that, you then seek to get filled with the Spirit, too. Healing happens the same way. And that is what is going on right now God is feeding us to cause us to become something.
Isn't it necessary for us to understand why we teach these things? Many say we don't need the Old Testament The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. It's hidden in there. They're both needed.
Here's the story in Exodus and were going to get into the plagues in a minute. The book of Exodus begins with,
1:7 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.We have the same thing at the end of this age and holy nation. We have a land that is filled with Christians today, but just like the children of Israel were in bondage to Egypt in the beginning of this book, so the church today sees itself in bondage to the world. But it's not going to stay that way.
The children of Israel began to cry and weep and pray, "God deliver us from the burdens of Egypt." God heard their cries and remembered His covenant.
There are people who are praying and God is hearing. The bondage that you presently is going to be set straight. Moses pictures God's answer to the cries of the hurting Christians out there who are asking, "Is this all that Christianity has to offer?"
Out of the church, God is raising up a people who will be used to bring deliverance to the body of Christ. Does that make any sense to you?
People say, "No, Jesus is going to do it." Well, He is going to do it through a people. That's the problem. We're saying, "Okay, Jesus, just sick 'em!"
He is saying, "Okay, I'm going to use you. I am going to develop Myself within you. Its going to be accomplished by your ideas and your fleshly ways, but my life is going to flow out of you."
What do we do? Our part is to be faithful, tend sheep, help people that need help, and pray for people. Moses is a picture of what we are going through right now. He became barren, and he came to a burning bush. He came to the end of all that he was, and he turned aside to see God. Moses pictures a man who knew the signs that would bring people out of Egypt.