Favor and judgment

 This week's verses are 1 Corinthians 10:1-5:

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, 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 all drank the same spiritual drink. For they were all drinking from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But God was not pleased with most of them, for they were cut down in the wilderness. 

Paul here is talking about the favor Israel had when God led them out of Egypt.  They were led by God's physical presence that looked like a giant black cloud. God split the sea for them to pass and drowned their pursuers.  He gave them perfect free food, providing all of the calories and nutrients they would need. He provided water out of a solid rock when they were thirsty.

Most of us, if not all of us, have never directly experienced God's power in our lives like that. And yet, even in receiving all of that favor, the people sinned and were cut down in the wilderness. The favor they received was not some magic talisman to prevent them from taking God seriously. They still earned his righteous judgment.

Jews in Paul's time would often say "We are descendants of Abraham" to justify themselves as being favored in God's eyes. But Paul counters by saying that the people under Moses were descendants of Abraham too, and that wasn't enough on its own to save them. When they abandoned God, his judgment came.

The implications here should be frightening to us. We have God's favor, the same way Israel had God's favor when they were fleeing Egypt, but if we abandon him and rebel, we open ourselves up to judgment.

That's not to say there is no grace. It's to say that past favor doesn't mean future impunity. We can't just act as though there is no law or standard to live by or that we can choose our own standards unilaterally. We can't consciously and definitively walk away from God without walking away from the blessings that come from knowing him.

You can imagine how the Israelites must have felt before they were cut down. They were surrounded by signs and wonders and prophesies of God's blessing. Their faith walk probably seemed really deep and fruitful. So they probably began to cut corners and not take things seriously. Then one day they took a step too far.

 So we should keep this in mind when we become lax about our sin and our Christian growth. We are the recipients of a huge amount of supernatural grace, but it should never make us comfortable with rebellion. Recognize God for who he is and what he has done, and never take what he has given you for granted.