There's not much positive to be found in the story of the miserable failure of the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings. Paul's New Testament summary of the account he gives to the Corinthians is a tightly-packed catalog of forty years of failure (1 Corinthians 10:1-11).

The new nation of Israel seemed to start out well in the Exodus until about the time they got outside the city limits. The grumbling and complaining started immediately. This, although God miraculously delivered them from slavery, redeemed them as His people, and faithfully provided sustenance and protection.

In a few short verses, the Apostle Paul recounts forty years of sin on the part of the Israelites. Their chief sin was idolatry. It was first manifest in craving evil, then making the golden calf, immorality, testing the Lord, and grumbling and complaining. The result was that "most of them…were laid low in the wilderness" (1 Corinthians 10:5). They died as God disciplined them for their rebellion.

It's hard to find anything positive about all this, but there are a couple of things.

First, their disobedience was not wasted, for God meant it for our example in His Providence. "Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come" (1 Corinthians 10:5).

They are an example for our good, to help us avoid their mistakes. There are two kinds of examples, one positive and the other negative. We have positive examples throughout the Scriptures in men and women of faith, and the most significant example is the life of our Lord. We also have positive models: parents, teachers, coaches, and bosses—who impact our lives for good. We are more likely to pay attention to good examples. They are easy to follow because they are positive. But we should pay close attention to the negative examples as well.

While positive examples teach us what to do, negative examples teach us what not to do. The Scriptures have many examples of the failures of the saints: David, Saul, and even Moses. And there are negative examples in our own experience as well. As a chaplain, I would often have young sailors or marines come to me for counsel because their immediate supervisors mistreated them. My advice was always the same, "Pay close attention to what they are doing, how they treat people, what kind of a leader they are, and when the day comes that you are in a leadership position, don't do that!" A negative example can have a tremendously positive outcome.

The second positive we can derive from the forty years of failure is that God always has a remnant. God preserves a holy remnant to fulfill His promises and plan for mankind.

Five times in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, Paul uses the word all to describe the entirety of the nation of Israel, without exception:

• All were under the cloud.

• All were under the sea.

• All were baptized into Moses.

• All ate the same spiritual food.

• All drank the same spiritual drink, which was Christ who was ever with them.

All of them, the entire nation, were recipients of God's blessings. But the next verse says, "with most of them God was not well-pleased." True, most of them meant all but two, but that it was not all of them gives us hope. In the verses that follow and describe the sins for which they were severely disciplined, the text tells us four times that some of them took part in these sins—not all of them.

Unfortunately, the sins of some affected the lives of all. A new generation of Jews would be born in the desert and cross the Jordan with Joshua and Caleb into the Promised Land. But if God had been displeased with all of them, no one would have entered the Promised Land.

However, God always has His people. God's redeemed will be found faithful. Though the pull of sin is powerful, God's plan, Providence, and grace are still more powerful. His grace is irresistible, and He will preserve His children to the end. That's all God. If it were left up to the Israelites, they would all have perished. If it were left up to us, none of us would endure. But it's not up to us; God cannot but fulfill His redemptive plan through His chosen whom He has redeemed.

There would not be much positive in the wilderness wanderings—except for God's preservation of a holy remnant. Our part? Ours is to learn from their example given us in Scripture and lay hold of His grace by faith.