In 1787 Samuel Stennett wrote the words and nearly a century later in 1877 Tullius C. O’kane wrote the music for what became a favorite hymn for many people for many years. It’s titled: “I Am Bound for the Promised Land.” It serves as the title of our message today. We are so glad you’re with us today. Pull up a chair and stay tuned.
Warmest greetings to you friend; and welcome to our Bible study program “In Search of the Lord’s Way” to become a Christian, and His way to live so as to enter the “Promised Land.” Yes! There are other ways being taught and offered, but we are preaching and teaching the Lord’s Way. I’m glad you’re with us today. I am so excited about this message today: “I Am Bound for the Promised Land.” Well, I’m always excited about my studies with you but this one is especially exciting to me! You probably won’t believe me when I say what I’m about to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m past middle-aged. You see, I told you, you wouldn’t believe it. While I could live another forty years, I probably won’t. But, whenever I go “I am bound for the Promised Land.”
The chorus of that old hymn says, “Oh who will come and go with me, I am bound for the Promised Land.” My friend, will you come and go with me? Oh I hope so, but we must make some preparation for it if we’re going to go there. We have got to get ready and stay ready and be ready when the time comes. No, no, no, now we don’t know how much time we have. None of us knows that. Neither you nor I know how much time we have left here. Let’s get ready and be ready whenever the time comes, what do you say? That’s what our program is about today.
If you would like a free copy of it in printed form, or on CD or an audio cassette tape, just mail your request to it for In Search of the Lord's Way; P.O. Box 371; Edmond, OK 73083 or by e-mail to searchtv@searchtv.org. Or you may freely access it on our website at www.searchtv.org. And our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. After Ken Helterbrand leads us in a hymn, I’ll be back; we will read 1 Corinthians 10, verses 1 to 13, and then we will pray together.
We are reading from the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and we begin at verse 1. “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” Now with that long reading, and very meaningful reading, let us go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are so thankful to You for the revelation of your will toward us and for the stories that we have in the Old Testament that clarify this message. We pray your blessings on our study today. We thank You for everyone present with us. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
Our New Testament text draws some analogies or similarities between Judaism in the Old Testament and Christianity in the New Testament. In the Old Testament there are many of what the Scriptures describe as “types” or “shadows” that find their substance in the New Testament. Therefore, it’s good for the Bible student to study the Old Testament some and to become familiar with events recorded there. In fact, it is impossible for a person to understand some of the New Testament passages, such as the text today, without some knowledge of the Old Testament also. According to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 18 and Luke 24:44, Christ fulfilled the Old Testament law and the prophets. However, the Holy Spirit caused it to be written in Romans chapter 15, verse 4 that “Whatever was written before was written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” And we are admonished in Colossians chapter 2, verses 16 and 17 to “let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” With those thoughts in mind, then let’s begin our study now of the text itself.
In Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 to 9 God made a promise to Abram, whose name He later changed to Abraham, that He would give him the land of Canaan for a homeland for him and for his descendants. He renewed that promise to Abraham’s son, Isaac, in Genesis chapter 26, and to Isaac’s son, Jacob, whose name He changed to “Israel” in Genesis chapter 28. Well, there was one contingency, though: their descendants would spend some four hundred years as servants in a strange land (Genesis 15, verse 13). Of course, Bible students already know that that land was Egypt where they served as slaves. The amazing story of the way God providentially brought those, oh, some seventy people into Egypt and the terrible, terrible, inhuman and disgraceful life they lived there, you may read for yourself in Genesis, chapters 35 to 50. Then, in the first 13 chapters of Exodus, which is the second book, is an even more amazing of the story of God’s grace in delivering them all, an estimated two to three million of them from that slavery.
The first verse of our text says, “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, (and) all passed through the sea.” God had providentially brought Moses into the world, preserved his life and prepared him to be their leader, their deliverer. Moses repeatedly demanded of the Pharaoh “Let my people go!” But each time the king refused and with every refusal he increased the burden upon the Israelites. After their refusal God miraculously, after every refusal I should say, God miraculously brought a plague on the Egyptian people. You can read about all of them in Exodus chapters seven through eleven. And each of them was a demonstration of the power of Israel’s God over the power of the Egyptian idols. Well, the last of the plagues was the death of the first-born in every Egyptian family. That was the clincher. With it came the institution of the Passover, a traditional observance of the Israelite people to this very day. And with it also, Pharaoh would let the people go; whoops wait a minute though, he changed his mind and pursued them to the Red Sea, where his troops were drowned.
The triumphant Red Sea crossing of the Israelite people is recorded in Exodus chapter 14. All two to three million of them crossed the Sea on dry ground. “So,” the Scripture says, “the Lord saved Israel that day.” Were you listening, friend? Did you hear what I just quoted from Exodus 14:30? Let me quote it again. “So the Lord saved Israel that day.” “They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”
You see the analogy, don’t you? Just as the Israelites were in bondage, or slavery, in Egypt, the unconverted today are in bondage, or slavery, to sin. Oh, we don’t normally call it “slavery”, as the Scriptures do. We usually speak of it as “a habit,” or “a lifestyle” or maybe “an addiction” to tobacco or alcohol, or drugs, or sex or gambling or something else; but it’s what God calls “sin.” It is a hard life, too. There’s something I learned while only a boy on the farm. You reap what you plant. You plant cotton; that’s surely what will come up; you can be sure of it. It never fails, friend! And, if you live a life of evil, you’re certain to reap evil. It’s a hard, hard life, too. Another hard thing about it is that you always harvest, or reap more than you plant or sow. The Scripture says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while we do good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart” (Galatians 6, verses 6 through 9). My friend, we would believe that if we read it in a “comic strip,” wouldn’t we? So, “the Lord saved Israel that day” from the evil that they had suffered. The Scripture says they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, just as the sinner is saved when he is baptized into Christ in the waters of baptism today (Galatians 3:26-27).
And that’s the shadow and the substance. The shadow takes its form from the substance. In Romans 6:16 and 17 we read, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And then set free from sin, you became the slaves of righteousness.” What was the doctrine they were taught? Well, Paul has already written in chapter one that he had preached “the gospel of Christ” to them. Well, what is the gospel of Christ? Well, it’s the teachings of the death of Christ for our sins; His burial in the tomb; and His resurrection from that tomb (1 Corinthians 15:1 to 3). But you can’t obey that, can you now? You can believe it, though. And, you can do as the Christians at Rome and others had done, you can “obey from the heart” a form of it; that is the death of Christ for our sins; His burial; and His resurrection.
The same chapter explains how we can obey the form of it, beginning at verse one, the Scripture says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” In the preceding chapter he has written that we were saved by grace. Lest some one might be thinking then, that the more we sin, the more God’s grace abounds, then let’s keep on sinning that grace may abound more and more. And he replies, “Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? (Hear me now.) Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him through baptism into death, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” What is the “form” of the doctrine we have heard? It’s baptism, friend! Believe the doctrine that we have heard and then be baptized and that is the meaning of the passage that we are reading. Crossing the Red Sea is the shadow of the substance of our baptism.
So now, who were those people who were “saved” when they crossed the Red Sea? Well, of course, they were God’s saved people weren’t they? Stephen was one of the seven “men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom,” chosen by the apostles to serve the tables of the Lord in the Jerusalem church (Acts chapter 6, verses 1 to 7). And he said they were “the ekklesia,” the “called out people of God,” the “congregation,” or according to the King James Version, they were the “church in the wilderness” (Acts 7, verse 38).
Now these saved people, these people whom God had “called out” of slavery in Egypt were on their way to the Promised Land, the land of Canaan, the land that flowed with milk and honey, (Exodus chapter 3, verse 20) the land that God had promised to Abraham, his son Isaac and his grandson Israel for their homeland. After only, well, we might say “were they really on their way?” After only about three days they had no water. Oh, they found some water alright but it was bitter. “Moses,” they said, “Moses, what shall we drink?” (Exodus 15:24). There were two, maybe three million of them. Where would they find the food for that many? Well, God provided food from heaven, the manna (Exodus 16) but they didn’t like it. They remembered the onions and the garlic and the leeks that they had eaten in Egypt. While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the law of God, they made for themselves a golden calf to worship as the idol that delivered them from Egypt’s land.
Well, as they approached the Promised Land, Moses chose twelve men to go in and spy out the land. Ten of them came back with an evil report. They said they had seen giants there, in whose eyes they thought they looked like grasshoppers (Numbers 13:33). They said, “We cannot take the land.” Oh, faithless they were! That’s what they were! The other two, Joshua and Caleb had a very positive and encouraging report. They reported, “The Lord will find a way,” as we sing. And the Lord said to those faithless people whom He had blessed with salvation when they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea, all of them from twenty years old and above, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, “Your carcasses shall fall in the wilderness, you shall not enter the Promised Land” (Numbers 14). Can the saved be lost? My friend, every one of those graves in the wilderness is a witness to the truth that people can be saved, then be lost. They were not permitted to enter the land of promise. Even Moses himself was not permitted to enter there, because he didn’t give God the glory in providing the water. You may read about that in the book of Numbers, chapter 23. The message is clear and plain. Neither will the unfaithful church member enter heaven. My friend, I hope you have confessed Christ, repented of your sins, and been baptized into Jesus and are living faithfully. But if you are not, that you’ll take care of that today and come and go with me to the Promised Land. Will you? Holy Father, we pray that this message might not fall on deaf ears or enter hard hearts, but rather that it will find reception in the hearts and minds of those who hear it. In Jesus’ name, we pray it. Amen!
“Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank that same spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’ Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by the serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition (or instruction), upon whom the ends of the worlds have come.
“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
We’re presented here by some churches of Christ, some friends of yours and ours, all members of churches of Christ in the area served by this station. We would like you to pay one of these churches a visit real soon. Will you do that, friend? If you would like a free audio cassette tape or a printed form of this message, or a CD please address your request to “In Search of the Lord's Way”, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083 or you may by email searchtv@searchtv.org. Or our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633; our website is www.searchtv.org. We plan to be back next week. We hope you will too. God bless you now. We love you.
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