3. and all ate the spiritual manna
4. and drank the spiritual drink which flowed from the rock. The rock is said to have followed them wherever they went. That rock means the Christ.
5. Now mark and learn the lesson. Many of those original founders of our faith “were slain in the wilderness” (Num. xiv. 16).
6. The perfect will of God was not fulfilled in them and thereby we can discern the truth about ourselves, for they are types. They teach us not to lust, as some of them “lusted” (Num. xi. 4, 34).
7. Yes, our fathers took part in that great piece of history, they witnessed that divine manifestation of God, and yet though part of all that, they were not all elect. There took place in their midst a corresponding reprobation and apostacy of some. They worshipped idols, and made an image to Jehovah, and made a pagan rite of his sacrifice. “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” (Exod. xxxii. 6)
8. They committed fornication, and 23,000 fell in one day.
9. They tempted the Lord, and were destroyed by serpents.
26-27. Similarly, you can dine with friends not of the faith, and eat whatever they set before you. That is our freedom. “Is not the earth the Lord's and the fulness thereof?” (Ps. xxiv. 1).
28. But if your host inform you, “this meat was sacrificed to such and such a god,” then keep the rule of absolute abstention from idolatry.
29. You may consider yourself free, and think that you partake of all things by the grace of God,
30. and are able to give thanks therefore with a good conscience, but if you are really free, why should this action affect the conscience of another, and be misinterpreted? It is better not to eat of it where other people's consciences are at stake.
31-32. Seek not your own point of view, lean not to that, although you know yourself to be as free as Christ has made you in all such matters of eating and drinking, or whatever other things you may be doing, but seek the glory of the one God, seek to commend yourself to all men, whether your company be Jewish, Greek or those who are of the faith. O think not of yourselves, but of them!
33. That is always my point of view, to please all in every way I can, that they may find salvation;