Romans chapter 9 verses 1 through 5, we're going to be focused on verse 4 through 5 today. I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

They are Israelites and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is the God over all, blessed forever. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for your word.

We want to thank you for your servant, Apostle Paul, that through his labor and sacrifice that you've given us the book of Romans to wrestle, to be comforted, to be challenged, and at times even rebuked, that we may live according to the calling of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We pray that you would give us insight, help us to understand what you meant, that you would take the blinders off of our eyes, the sinful filter sometimes that we use to understand your word. We pray that your Holy Spirit would get to the heart of who we are and where we are, that we may see a clear vision of Christ and what he has done.

Help us, Lord God, to be simple-minded people, people with childlike faith who simply desires to worship you and to be near you. We pray all the distractions, Lord, that we brought into this room. Help us, Lord, to take our eyes off of these things and fixate it upon Christ and Christ alone.

I pray that your word would be powerful and your word alone may be taught and listened and obeyed. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Again, I want to just kind of bring us back in our mind and our thinking to where we are in the book of Romans. Apostle Paul has taken eight chapters to exposit and to dive into the gospel message.

He started out with, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Jews and Gentiles alike." And he brought us through details of what Christ has done. And his message in the eight chapters is the most clearest presentation of Christ and what he has done for us on the cross.

So it's basically the gospel message in depth. Now if you've been paying attention carefully and if you were a Jew, Paul already knows what the Jews must have been thinking if they heard this for the first time. If they believed that all their assurance, all their security was based upon their law and their special relationship with God.

And then Paul all of a sudden says that all of that is not real. That the very things that you held onto for security is actually going to bring condemnation. That the same judgment that the Gentiles are under, you will also be under. So Paul already knows that this message is not going to be well received.

And so in order to nullify the message, they know that the easiest way to do that is to nullify the messenger. So Paul begins in chapter 9, 10 and 11 defending his message to the nation of Israel. And again, just defending the gospel itself. And so we're going to again, chapter 9, 10 and 11, he's going to be describing about his promises to the nation of Israel and how God is still faithful to everything that he has said.

But he begins the chapter by defending himself. He says, "I am not lying. I am telling the truth. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit." In fact he goes even further than that and says, "It's not because I hate the Jews. It's not because I have something against the Jews." In fact he says he loves them so much that if it was possible for him to be accursed on their behalf, I would.

And obviously we know that that is not possible. But Paul is trying to convey that my preaching, the gospel message, is the truth. That he loves them dearly. And then today he's going to be going into details of the privilege of the nation of Israel. Again, he's saying all of this so that they could recognize that Paul knows very well where the nation of Israel stands.

The privilege that they have and why he loves them and why he was so zealous before he met Christ. You know in modern day era, when we think about the Jewish people, automatically we think about the Holocaust. Because it was horrific. Even to this day. If something terrible happens or you want to equate somebody with the most horrible act in modern history, we would say, "Oh that guy's like Hitler.

He's Hitler-esque. He's like the Nazis." Again, that's the worst thing that you can possibly say about a person or a group of people. Because they wanted to extinguish all the Jews. Six million people, from young children to grandparents, were slaughtered for no other reason other than the fact that they were born into a particular race.

So in our modern day era, when we think about the Jewish people, we immediately think about the tragedy, the suffering that they went through. The Holocaust. But from a biblical perspective, the greatest tragedy for the nation of Israel, as horrific as the Holocaust was, was not the Holocaust. The greatest tragedy for the nation of Israel is that their Messiah came to save them.

That all the promises that God made to the nation of Israel for the sake of their own sins to save them from condemnation, almost as a whole, rejected him. And they did not recognize his coming. And as a result of that, not six millions, and we don't know the exact number in the last 2,000 years, but a much greater number will face condemnation before a holy, holy, holy God.

And this is not just true of the nation of Israel, but for any human being. The biggest tragedy in our life is not poverty. It's not cancer. It's not early death. All of these things are horrific things. God does call us to stand up for the weak and the orphans and the widows.

This is part of Christian responsibility. But the greatest tragedy, from a biblical perspective, is whether you die young or old, and whether you live to a ripe old age in your 90s, or maybe even beyond 100, the tragedy is not knowing Christ and not recognizing him and dying without the atonement, the free gift of salvation in Christ.

That's always the greatest tragedy. See, Paul is writing in the book of Romans, in particular verses that we're going to be looking at in 4 through 5, he's going to be outlining nine specific blessings that the nation of Israel had. The nation of Israel, their tragedy was that God blessed them so tremendously, and yet, when Christ came, almost as a whole, they didn't recognize him, and they ended up crucifying him.

Now before I even get to the end, I'm going to tell you the application of all of this as Christians in modern day era that is not just about the nation of Israel. In fact, the statistics the last time that I saw was that almost 80% of children who grew up in Christian homes and went to church and went to Sunday school, almost 80% of them walk away from their faith before they turn 30.

Much of that happens sometime between college and young adult age. Now you say, "Well, 80%, that seems kind of high, considering that our church is filled with people in their 20s and 30s." But if you've been a Christian for more than 20, 30 years, you probably already have seen that among your friends, your peers, the people that you walked diligently with when you were younger.

The tragedy of being in a church and hearing the gospel, attending Awana Sunday school, even having family worship, memorizing the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, going to Awana, and even as a young adult, discipleship, short-term missions, and even after I've done all that, the reality of the matter is that more than 80% of people who grew up in the church with hearing the gospel, surrounded by Bible teaching, surrounded by preaching, church, opportunities, fellowship, home groups, accountability, fellowship, beyond what most people can barely even imagine that we have, and yet 80% of our generation has fallen out from the church.

See, the tragedy of the nation of Israel is reflective, and it is also a warning to anyone who's been raised in the church, who've been around the gospel, who've been around God's Word, and yet our hearts have become numb and dull. And so when Christ comes, we can easily say, "That won't happen to me." If Jesus walks on water and He heals a man who was born blind, He raised people from the dead.

If I saw that with my eyes, I would not reject Him. Maybe. But the reality of the nation of Israel is they did. He begins by telling us nine things, and I want to go through the nine things that Paul says that they were blessed with. And I think every single one of these things, and I'm not going to mention it, but I think every single one of these things, to some degree, is reflective of the blessing of being a part of the church.

One, He says, "They are Israelites." I mean, that may, you may just kind of skim over that when you read it, but to say that you are Israelites automatically meant to the nation of Israel that you were chosen by God. The name itself means people who wrestle with God.

That was a name given to Jacob after a long night of wrestling, or the name of Israel. And basically that name automatically meant that you were separated from the rest of the nation. You were special to God. You were not like others. Deuteronomy 7, 6, it says, "For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth." The fact that Paul says, "You are Israelites," automatically the Israelites would have understood that we were special. That God was among them.

That they were the ones who were wrestling, and His presence was there. Secondly, he says to them, "To you, the Jews, belong the adoptions." Not only were they chosen by God, in Exodus 4, 22, it says, "You shall say to the Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord, 'Israel is my firstborn.'" When we hear the term "firstborn" in our culture context, we mean He's first, second, third, or fourth.

But God is not saying to the nation of Israel, "Firstborn," as in, "Well, I birthed you, and then I'm going to birth another nation, and then another nation." The term "firstborn" signifies a special blessing upon that particular nation. That there's no others. Because the firstborn was the one where the inheritance, and the line of the predecessors, the ancestors, would go through this particular line.

That God had a particular purpose. And that's what it means to be firstborn. So when in the New Testament, Jesus is called the only begotten Son, He's not saying "begotten" as in He created Him out of nothing. He's separating Him from all of other things. There's no one like Him.

And that's what He means when He calls a nation of Israel "firstborn." There's no other nation like the nation of Israel. Hosea 11, 1, it says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt, I called my son." When God calls a nation of Israel His children, or His son, it's basically saying that He loves them.

There's special concern, special affection for this nation that is unlike any other nation. So if any of my children came and asked me, "Dad, can I come and eat something from the refrigerator?" My answer would be, "You're my son." And what I mean by that is, why would you even ask that?

Everything I have is yours. What is the kind of relationship that you have with your children that you don't have with anybody else? So when God says to the nation of Israel that you have the adoption, God is saying that of all the people that I have fixated my attention and love in particular upon you, not only were they people who contended with God, not only were they chosen to be loved, He says yours is the glory.

Glory typically signifies God's real presence among His people. Glory basically means to magnify His essence. That's what glory is. So whoever and whatever God is, is being displayed. That's what glory is. So when it says, "Glory is yours," meaning that God drew near to His people. He wasn't a God who chose Him from a distance and said, "You know what?

I'm going to declare you and put a stamp on Him," and then He disappeared. When He says, "Not only were you Israelites, not only are you adopted," He said, "Yours is the glory," meaning that they had access to God's presence like no other nation. They saw His glory close up.

They saw the miracles and how He performed miracles, how He fed them through 40 years of the desert. His glory would appear in the temple and He would rest upon the Holy of Holies permanently. And He would be there. Anytime the Israelites wanted to be in His presence, they could just go to the temple.

They witnessed the glory of God like no other people. Not only were they witnesses of His glory, He said they had the covenant. See the covenant is what separated them. See today when two people get married, we say, you know, two people get in a covenant. But a lot of times people don't understand the biblical idea of a covenant.

Typically we get into contracts. Whether you're selling a property or you're going into business with somebody, you make an agreement and you have a signed contract. You do your part and I do my part. The biblical idea of a covenant is God choosing unilaterally to commit Himself to you.

So when He says yours is a covenant, it's that God separated you to adopt you, to reveal Himself to you in His glory. And yours is the covenant. He made this covenant to Abraham. He repeated to his son Isaac and then to his son Jacob. And then He repeated over and over again.

See this covenant that God made with the nation of Israel was unlike any other covenant. That's why over and over again when God reveals Himself to generations that came after Abraham, He would often reveal Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He's not simply saying that, oh, these three people that started the nation of Israel, I mean, that's the same God.

And that's partially true. But by saying He's the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He's reminding them. I am that same God who made covenant with your forefathers and that covenant is still true with you. It is that same God. See when He says He's covenanted, that covenant with the nation of Israel was very special.

And that's why if you know the story of Jacob and Esau, where Esau was the hairy guy, he's the manly man, right? He's the lumberjack. He goes and he goes hunting and then he comes back famished and Jacob's the one who's at home by his mother's side, mama's boy.

And he comes back and he's famished and he said, give me some soup. And he said, well, give me your birthright and I'll give you some soup. And Esau being outdoorsy, like man's man, he said, well, what is that to me? I'm going to die. He's a little bit exaggerating, dramatic.

And then he said, okay, I'll give you my birthright and he gives it to him. And because of that mistake, permanently that birthright was taken away. Now we can look at that and say, any of you who have siblings, right? Any of you who have siblings know that that type of conversation happens all the time when you're young, right?

Give me your candy, right? And I'll do this for you or that for you. And it looks like a childish, maybe even a prank and selfishness on Jacob. But because of that, God's blessing is upon him and not upon Esau. Superficially we may look at that and say, well, that doesn't sound fair or just.

But do you have to remember the firstborn right, the inheritance in this particular family wasn't unlike any other family. Because God covenanted with their predecessors, with their ancestors, that he was going to make, he was going to bless them and make their nation great. And eventually the Messiah was going to come through this line.

So for Esau to forsake his birthright, his inheritance, was to trivialize the covenant that God made with him. And he wasn't just rejecting the inheritance, meaning property and cows and whatever inheritance, whatever inheritance a typical firstborn child would get. He was saying, what good is any of that? What good is all the promises of God, all of this to me if I'm hungry?

See this covenant that God made with the nation of Israel was unlike any other covenant. So he says, you're in Israel. You are, you have the adoption. You have the glory. You have the covenant. And if that's not enough, he says, you have the law. You know, biblically we say, you know, there's general revelation and there's special revelation.

Right now I could have general revelation of who you are. Some of you didn't sleep last night, right? That's my observation. I could see it in your face. Some of you are hungry. I see it. Some of you are excited. Some of you are angry. You know, typically a lot of people look at me and they say, you know, they think I'm angry because I have this scar on my, or it's not a scar.

It's just a genetic mark of our family. But that's general revelation. And oftentimes I have to tell them, actually, I'm very happy. You know, I'm not angry. You know, people are kind of intimidated to talk because they think I'm angry. I have this scowl, right? But there's things that you can know through general revelation.

You need the general observation that they're not all, you know, they're not all wrong, but they're not accurate. They're not precise. So we have general revelation. God left an imprint of who he is. But we also have special revelation where God speaks directly with languages and his words through poetry.

And it says to the nation of Israel, you were the first who received the law of God, where God drew near to them and gave them the covenant and he presented his glory to them unlike everybody else. And he also spoke to them clearly. For what purpose? To reveal himself.

So there's certain things that you can know about me from a distance, from the way I preach, the way I dress, my scowl and say, well, Peter is like this. And then there's some of you had intimate knowledge of because I spent a lot of time with you. But you know, nobody knows me like my mom or my brothers or my wife and my kids.

See, the nation of Israel had special revelation of God through the law. John Calvin says there's three particular uses of the law. And the first one is a mirror. It is a reflection of who God is in every household. There are certain rules that you have. Right. So maybe the father and mother will say in our house, we don't eat with our hands.

We everybody is at the table at five o'clock and finishes at six and very regimented. And that's a reflection of the parents. It's a reflection of the dad. Some houses you go, it's very artsy, you know, paintings everywhere and everything's a little artsy. But again, that's a reflection of of the people who are running that house.

So in every household you go, there's a little bit of the character of the person who owns that house. The law, the first thing that it does, it reveals his nature, his character, who he is. And they had a special revelation where God spoke to them and said through the law, this is me.

The law reveals his holiness. He talks about how what you should and should not do. But oftentimes when we think about the law, we think of condemnation. But the law also reveals his very gentle, caring, merciful, faithful, forgiving God. This very law that said if you break the Sabbath, there is condemnation also tells them to save a little piece of your harvest at the end so that the foreigners and the widows, when they come by, they can eat.

That same law talked about the Jubilee, the forgiving of debt. It reveals God's nature. It reveals his character. What the nations could have kind of known about God because he left his imprint on his creation, Israel had firsthand knowledge because God spoke to them directly. The law restrains. It's a tutor to guide and lead and ultimately reveals his will and his purpose.

So that's why Jesus says in John 4, 22 to the Samaritan woman, you worship what you do not know. You kind of have an idea of who God is, but you don't really know him. We worship what we do know. He's talking about the Jewish people for salvation is from the Jews.

See the scripture talks about how there was a general imprint that God existed and that we ought to worship this God who created us. But to the nation of Israel, God specifically told them about what sins and how he was going to deal with that sin through the law.

Not only do they have the law, he says, you have to worship. Now the word worship in the New Testament, there's three specific words. There is the most prominent word, proskuneo, which means to bow down, to prostrate oneself and is the most prominent word where they're confronted by God's presence and they can do nothing but to worship him.

And true worship is almost always a reaction. True worship almost always is when we encounter this God, it causes us to bow down. That's true worship. Not something, I should say this, I should mean this, but when we're confronted with his true presence, that's proskuneo. The other word is sabomai.

Sabomai basically means to have reverence and emotion. When the scripture says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, God wants not just prostrating oneself, but genuinely from the heart. But the word that is used here for worship is latruo. Oftentimes the word latruo is translated as worship, but sometimes it's translated as service because that's exactly the meaning of this word.

And in particular to the Jewish people, it's talking about service at the temple. So in other words, what Paul is saying is you had the privilege to draw near to God in service and in worship. You know, oftentimes when we think about serving the church, it's like, well, I have to do this.

And we kind of give people guilt trips like, hey, you know, we need to toilet clean and how come we're the only ones cleaning? Why don't you clean it? You haven't volunteered for doing this, so why don't you do it? But Paul said you had the privilege. The reason why it was a privilege because the very fact that they're able to approach God was a privilege.

If sin separated us from God, and that's what we lost at the fall because of the sin, the atonement of sin means that we are able to draw near to God. And that's the blessing that we have, restoration. Oftentimes we think of salvation as not going to hell and going to heaven.

But what was lost at the fall was the ability to be able to glorify God, the ability to draw near to God. So the fact that we are able to worship God, it says, draw near to the throne of grace with confidence because of what Christ has done. See, that's the word that is used here, "lutro," you have the worship.

That every aspect of the temple was a privilege. Whether you are a priest sacrificing, whether you carry the poles, whether you cleaned outside, all that was an act of drawing near to God. And so you had that privilege of worship. And then you had the promises. Number seven, God made promises to this particular nation that he would be faithful to them.

That even in their sins and judgment, God promises that he will restore the remnant. He promised them his protection, his provision. But among all the promises that God made to the nation of Israel, nothing is as more significant than the promise he made of the coming Messiah. That every promise that he made to the nation of Israel will be fulfilled when the Messiah comes.

There's over 400 separate prophecies about Jesus' coming, who he is, how he will come, what he will look like, what will happen when he comes, how he will die, how he will suffer. His perspective as he's hanging on the cross, who will betray him. All of that was prophesied.

John 5, 46, Jesus says, "If you believed in Moses, you would believe in me, for he wrote of me." Of all the promises that God made, nothing is more significant than the coming of the Messiah for the sake of their sins. And he says, number eight, to them, to you, belong the patriarchs.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Hebrews chapter 11 lists a long list of majority Jewish people, patriarchs, who went before them, men of faith. And after talking about how these people, because of their faith, did these heroic things, he says, "Considering the cloud of witnesses that has gone before us, let us run faithfully.

The race set before us." So these patriarchs were of their nation. It was their people. They weren't just studying some history, they were studying history of their own people that went before them. Men of faith to follow, women of faith to follow. But finally, of all the blessings that God gave the nation of Israel, and I could stop right here and say, "Well, there's no other nation that had this blessing." But above all of that, he says at the end, "And from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God overall, blessed forever.

Amen." That this Messiah was going to come in your line. I mean, can you imagine, you know, every time I open the Bible, I have to consider the cultural context, because I'm not from that culture. Every time I open up the scripture and try to figure out what it says, I have to understand the language that they used.

How did they understand it? See, but the Jews, Jesus was from their culture. So when he used his illustration, they knew exactly what he was talking about. He talked about the sheep. He talked about the various parables. It was all within their culture with their own language. That every little nuance of his relationship with his mom and his brothers, all of that was within their context, because Jesus came from their line and their culture.

That the Messiah, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, came to us as a Jew. Knowing all of that, how privileged they were, all the blessings and the love and the law and the promises and the covenant, the patriarchs, the examples, and Christ himself come into flesh as a Jew.

You would think, if we didn't already know what happened, you would think that when Jesus showed up, that they would have been loyal to him. They would have recognized him. But they didn't. When the scripture says that the light came into the world, but the people did not desire the light, for they desired darkness over the light.

First and foremost, he's talking about the Jewish people. Why did they miss him? That's the big question. Before we flippantly just dismiss, "Oh, those Jews, they were so blind. How could they have missed him?" Just before we just simply dismiss that, we have to ask ourselves, were these people who were so privileged, was eyewitnesses of his glory?

It was passed down from generation to generation, how he delivered these people from Egypt, from Pharaoh, in a miraculous way. And every year, they were to tell this to their children as a story over and over, every holiday. Everything that they did reminded them about the coming Messiah. And yet when he came, they completely missed it.

See, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 1 through 13, that all of this is very relevant to us. It is an encouragement and as a warning. He says in 1 Corinthians 10, 1, he says, "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 seas 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." Everyone saw the glory. Everyone ate the manna. Everyone saw the rain. Everyone saw his miracles. And yet most of them turned away from God.

Why is this so true today? Not just to the nation of Israel. Why is it that the people who have the greatest blessing on earth, and I'm talking about me and you, the privilege that we have, the freedom that we have, the access that we have to his words, no other generation, no other place in the world has the kind of freedom and access we have to his word, to his church, to the fellowship, to the opportunities, to the worship.

And our greatest lack is not lack of fellowship, lack of opportunities, lack of leadership, lack of preaching, it's lack of faith, lack of passion, lack of perseverance. See, Paul says in verse six, "Now these things took place as an example for us that we might not desire evil as they did." So he said all the things that are the tragedy of the nation of Israel, he says, "To serve as an example, as a warning to all of us, because we are just as susceptible to this spiritual blindness as they were." He says, there's six things I want to quickly mention here, he says in verse seven through thirteen.

Number one, he says, "Well what does this look like? Why were they so blind?" The first thing that he says in verse seven, "Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written," and he describes this idolatry, and I want you to pay very close attention to what he says.

This idolatry that he describes as, "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." Now that's not, that wasn't their only sin, but that's the first thing that's mentioned. He talks about sexual immorality, he talks about other things, but the first, remember in the Bible when they make a list of things, whether it's a list of disciples, list of sin, the first is always significant, because they always wrote things in priority or of importance.

So when he says the Israelites, they all fell away because they fell into idolatry, and here's the first thing. "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." I mean that sounds kind of trivial, considering we know what kind of sins that they fell into.

Constant sin of Asherah, worshiping Asherah, Paul and Baal, and chasing after adultery, the sexual immoral sins that they committed, forsaking and blasphemy against God, considering all of these things, that that would be the first thing? He says in Hosea chapter 13, 5, "I cared for you," he's talking about the nation of Israel, "I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat.

When I fed them, they were satisfied. When they were satisfied, they became proud, and then they forgot me." The beginning of all their sins was apathy. The beginning of all their idolatry, the sexual immorality, everything that caused them to be so blind, how can they have so much blessing, special revelation, the covenant, the worship, the ancestors, Christ himself coming in their flesh, in their culture, and they were so spiritually dense that they did not recognize him.

How did it start? They sat, they ate, they drank, they played. What causes our hearts to be more hardened than anything else is not persecution, it's not fear, it's distraction. It's distraction. Overly concerned about things that don't matter. They're not sinful, they're not things that we are naturally ashamed of, these are things that we regularly participate in, they're not sinful, but we're just overly distracted by the things that don't matter.

See, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 32, in argument for the resurrection, he says, "If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." He's not saying this, he's not saying this as an encouragement or anything, he's sarcastic, he's saying, "Well, I mean, that's the way we would, if the resurrection didn't take place, we would live like everybody else.

Eat, drink, for tomorrow we die." There is no consequence. In other words, what Paul is saying, "But that is not the case. Jesus did rise from the dead. The gospel is true. As much as it is appointed for all men to die once, after this comes judgment." There's eternal consequences.

There's souls that are dying. Christ came to save us from our sins. That's what Paul is saying, "If that didn't happen and we don't believe that, let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." But that is not what we profess. That is not what we believe.

That is not what we sing about every single Sunday. In other words, Paul is saying, "Let us examine ourselves, that we do not simply drift." And that was a problem with the recipients of the letter of Hebrew. They were apostate, or they were in danger of being apostate, simply because they were drifting.

They were drifting. Not only were they drifting, and he's warning them about this drifting, verse 8 he says, "We must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day." You know what's one of the first things that happens when we drift and our hearts become hardened?

We become insensitive to sin. We become insensitive to sin. We can indulge in sin, and it's okay. We justify, we can pretty much justify anything in our lives, when our hearts have become hardened toward God. So he said, "Well, they just said, 'Let's eat, drink, be merry, and just kind of go play.'" Their hearts are hardened, and then they began to indulge in sexual immorality, and they became desensitized.

You know, I became a Christian in the early 80s, and then now, obviously, 2017, and many years have passed. And what was acceptable 30 years ago, or 30-some years ago, is night and day today. I think people will be shocked. And I'm not going to make a judgment statement, because every generation has their own sins.

You know? But I can tell you, and you can disagree with me, but I think most guys that I know who are Christians with me in college, or younger, will universally testify that our generation has become so desensitized to immorality, that even within the church, it's openly shared. See, first it starts with, "Hey, let's just have fun.

Let's just live." And then we become desensitized toward sin. Thirdly, it says, "We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed." They were persistent. And as a result of their persistent sin, they tested God, and as a result, judgment came. And then it says, in verse 10, "And they also grumbled, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer." See when you're not right with God, and if you're separated from the author of life, and you become desensitized to sin, and you persist in the sin, judgment comes upon you, and as a result of trials and difficulties that sometimes we don't even recognize as God's discipline upon our lives, then we start to grumble.

See worship is an expression of thanksgiving. True worship is always an expression of thanksgiving toward what God has done. But when you're under the pressure of God, you begin to grumble, not recognizing that His hand might be upon you, and they begin to grumble. And so the opposite of worship is grumbling.

That's why the scripture says, "Do nothing out of grumbling or complaining." Because that is exactly the opposite of worship. You won the lottery, the Son of God died for you, and then you're complaining about something, something trivial. So He said the Israelites were filled with grumbling, because there are certain things in their life just wasn't going right.

And then verse 12 is, "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." Considering all these things that the Israelites fell into, He said, "Take a step back and take heed, take close examination." Are any of these things true of you? Is any of these things true of you?

He said, "Take a step back and examine and humble ourselves before the Lord. As they fell, you will also fall." And then verse 13, He says, "There is no temptation that has taken you that is not coming to all man." Now, that's a warning and an encouragement at the same time.

It's a warning because no matter how strong you think you are, no matter how clever you think you are, there is no temptation that sees you that is not taking all man down. So even the greatest of men have fallen because of their pride. But it's also an encouragement that even among the weakest of us, the temptations are the same.

And He follows that up by saying, "God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with temptation He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it." He starts by warning us. The nation of Israel fell into the same thing, same apathy.

How can a nation who was so privileged, yet the Messiah come and standing right before them and did not recognize Him and ended up crucifying Him, He said, "Take heed." None of us are exempt from the same mistake. If we follow the same pattern, nation of Israel, our hearts become hardened the same.

We become desensitized to sin. We test the patience of our God. And then we begin to grumble as a result. And in our grumbling, we don't recognize God's hand. But take heed. Take heed. I'm going to finish up with the same question I asked. How could they have missed the Messiah?

Before we flippantly dismiss them as, "Oh, the nation of Israel, those guys were so blind." You know? How can they see somebody be resurrected? How can they see Him raise somebody from the dead, Lazarus, walking on water, feeding them miraculously? "Oh man, if I saw that, that would not happen to me." Remember when Thomas saw Jesus and he said, "Let me see." And Jesus shows him His scars.

He said, "Thomas, you believe because you saw. Blessed are those who do not see, and yet they believe." You and I can easily think and say, "Well, if I was there, I don't think that would have done that." It's like, if Jesus came, would you recognize Him? If Jesus came tomorrow, would you recognize Him?

I know we may be all asking the same question, and I hope that you don't just flippantly answer that question, but we don't need to wait next month or next year to find that out. Because the scripture says to the disciples, to all of us, He says, "I will not leave you as orphans." When He sent His disciples out, He said, "Go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, behold, I am with you to the end of the age." He said He will be with us.

We don't have to wait. We don't have to wait to see, will we recognize Him? Will we follow Him? Will we worship Him? Will we honor and obey Him? We don't have to wait until He comes again, because He said He is among us. He's here in His Word.

He's here in the church. He's here in the Holy Spirit. He's here in the fellowship. He's the light. Do you recognize Him? Do you worship Him? Or have we become blind? My prayer, again, for our church, and I know moving to a new building, and there's a lot of superficial excitement and all that, and I hope you are excited.

I am excited. But every blessing that God gives us can turn into tragedy if that causes us to think that we're good. We're good. I'm fed. I'm satisfied. And I superficially follow Him, superficially worship Him, but it erases the desperateness in our heart that I need Christ. I needed Him 34 years ago.

I needed Him 10 years ago. I needed Him today. And until we recognize just how desperate we are, no matter how physically wealthy we think we are, take heed lest we fall. I pray that the example of the nation of Israel would convict our hearts to remind us of our desperateness before Christ.

Let's take some time to pray as we invite our worship team comes up. And again, I want to encourage you, those of you who have a hard time praying in private, I think the best way to learn how to pray in private is to learn to pray in public.

The same muscles that help you to pray in public will also help you to pray in private. So I want to encourage you to wrestle. And sometimes it's easier when we're praying together in a group. So pray. To come before the Lord, you don't know what to say, say it.

Say that to God. I don't know what to say, Lord. I don't know how to pray. Here's where I am. Help me. So let's come before the Lord in simple honesty. I want to worship you. Open my eyes, soften my heart that your word would have its effect on me.

So let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us.