Warnings!

“Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” 1 Corinthians 10:6

If you want to ride in a peloton (a line of cyclists) there’s one thing you need to learn early on. When you’re riding on the wheel of another cyclist, it’s not always possible to spot hazards in the road ahead. You also don’t have much warning if the rider ahead of you suddenly slows or stops. So it’s very important to learn that when you ride in a peloton you need to warn the rider behind you by pointing out hazards in the road and signaling when you’re going to use your brakes. Otherwise the person behind you will probably hit the same pothole you hit, or run into your wheel as you stop suddenly. And the results can be disastrous, yes, even fatal.

As I read 1 Corinthians 10:6 this morning I thought about the person who has gone ahead providing a warning to the one who is behind. Paul tells us that the lives of God’s people in the Old Testament are recorded so that we may learn from their mistakes and not repeat them. There’s an old saying about history that appears in many different forms, but the earliest version is probably that of the 19th Century poet and philosopher George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This is one of the reasons God wants us to be in the Word daily.

There’s another quote, however, from Mark Twain that is not nearly so familiar, but has a grain of truth in it. “It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible” The truth is that everyone of us has the same sinful nature that we inherited from our parents, all the way back to Adam and Eve. That sinful nature would make it impossible for us to learn from others’ past mistakes and keep from repeating them without God’s power at work in our lives.

Paul writes: “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13) If we rely on ourselves to keep from repeating history when faced with temptation, we will fall. If we remember that God knows us better than we know ourselves and only permits us to endure temptations that by his power we can overcome, and if we remember that he makes a way for us out of every temptation, then we will not be doomed to repeat the sins of the past.

When we are able to overcome temptation by God’s power at work in us, then we will not cause others to stumble and fall, (1 Corinthians 10:32) in the same way that we keep others from falling in the peloton by pointing out the rock in the road, and signaling our stop.