1 Corinthians 10 verse 13. Hear now this, the word of the living God. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Well, this is the word of the living God, and we say, thanks be to God. Amen. Please be seated. Let's pray together. Ask the Lord's blessing. on his word this evening. Our Father, we acknowledge you as the giver of all good gifts and the giver of your word. It's a guide for us. It's a lamp post in a dark place. And we are in the midst of a dark place. We are still here on earth. We are yet to be in our eternal home. And we depend on you to light our path, and we pray that you will do that this evening through this, your word from 1 Corinthians. So bless us, we pray. Give us eyes to see Christ here, and even draw people to him, the Savior. It's in his name we pray, amen. Well, why do you sin against God? Why do you sin? There might be a number of theological answers to that question, but let's get real practical here for a moment. Why do you specifically sin? Do you have excuses for your sin? Perhaps you have certain weaknesses, perhaps no one knows about, perhaps your weakness is covetousness, perhaps it's rivalry, or greed, lust, pride. Whether your sin comes in the form of lack of discipline, lack of love for God, lack of love for people. Perhaps you frequently are angry, unjustly so. What do you do when you sin? Do you have excuses that you tell yourself? Do you have excuses that you tell others? We just finished the book of Judges, preaching through that in the evening, and we're now finished with that, and Lord willing, the next book of the Bible that I plan to preach through in the evenings is the book of Titus, but we're not there yet. After the book of Judges, I wanted to pause here in a text like this where we can see that God provides for us in the midst of temptation. In the book of Judges, we saw story after story of the Israelites falling into various kinds of idolatry, sexual immorality, sins of all sorts. And we saw in that book a progression. And if you were here with us a couple weeks ago, we saw the finale. We saw that Israel had become like Sodom and Gomorrah. They had sinned in such a way, their hearts were so hard, that they had become like the pagans around them. Well, this evening, we have a verse from the New Testament that I hope will spark hope within you. I don't want to leave the book of Judges and just say, oh, people are really bad, the world is really bad. I want to give us some hope at the end of that book. There's lots of hope within the book, and I hope you saw that. There are a number of pictures even of Christ in that book. There's a lot of grace in that book. When we get to the end of it, perhaps some of you are just overwhelmed with some of the filth that we saw in those pages, particularly towards the end. Well, let's begin this evening. There are three headings and then a number of applications. The first heading is this, your temptations are common. Your temptations are common. Remember in the book of Judges, people are surrounding the Israelites, the pagan people, and they put pressure on the Israelites. And time and again, they give way to the pressures around them. There's economic pressures. They fear death. They fear being taken over. And at times, they are taken over. They are put under economic pressure. And people, fall into increasing sin. And one of the things that can occur to us, perhaps, is when we read a book like that, that we think that, oh, that's just what they experienced in the Old Testament. That's just what they experienced thousands of years ago. Our temptations are nothing like theirs. We could never sin in such a way. The text here says something very plain to us, doesn't it? No temptation. has overtaken you except such as is common to man. You are not unique, in other words. We are not unique, even though we are in the church age. So what is temptation? Answer that first. Temptation occurs when a person is presented with an opportunity to sin against God. You are tempted when you are presented with an opportunity to sin. The enemies of God frequently present people, God's image bearers, with opportunities to sin. But to be clear, God is not the author of sin, and God does not tempt anyone. We know this because the book of James tells us this explicitly. James 1, let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. God does not disobey his own law. He does not desire for anyone to disobey his law. And so therefore, he does not tempt us to disobey his law. Rather, it is Satan who is the tempter. Satan tempts you and me, he tempts us, just like he tempted Eve in the garden. Recall that Satan tempted Eve to doubt the goodness of God. Has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? That's a temptation. And he tempted Eve further. You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Well, Adam and Eve are tempted and they do sin. And you and I, born like them, we are born with a Well, now we are born in Adam, we have a sinful nature, and each one of us has a propensity to sin, and each one of us have sinned. Each one of us has given in to temptation. This is true for believers, it's true for unbelievers. Even those who are born again still have to wrestle with sin. Everyone wrestles sin, even our heroes of the faith. Think of whatever hero you may like, John Calvin, Augustine, even these brothers in the Lord wrestled with sin, even the apostles. Paul, John, Peter, the rest, they were all sinners, all were tempted, all failed. Before moving on to the rest of the text, let me be clear that to sin is not the same thing as to be tempted. Satan may tempt you, the world may tempt you, but you do not have to give in to that temptation. If you resist the temptation, you resist sin. We know this especially because our Lord Jesus, who never sinned, was himself tempted. Hebrews tells us this. We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. We have one who was in all points tempted as we are. Jesus was tempted. But let us not confuse that with Jesus sinning. It says he was tempted as we are yet without sin. Jesus was driven into the wilderness, you may remember, to be tempted by the evil one. So if he was tempted, believer, do you think you're above your Lord? Satan has not given up tempting us just because we are Christians. We will be tempted to doubt God, to hate God, to forsake God. And one of the points of this text tonight is to tell us that there is nothing new under the sun, and this includes temptation. There is no unique form of temptation in our day and age. So as we've gone through the book of Judges, and as we're now going through the book of Exodus, let us not say, oh, that's just them. They had some weird forms of sin. They were bowing down to carved images. I would never do that. They were participating in forms of sexual morality that are just crazy. Look at me again at our text, chapter 10, verse 13. There's a phrase there, it says, common to man. That phrase could be read common to mankind, common to humanity. The temptations that come upon us are common. So no matter what kind of temptation you experience, according to our text, it is not unusual. You are not alone. Your temptations are not unique. You cannot say, for instance, I am poor, and therefore the temptations that I have, that press upon me, are just more difficult than what other people experience. And you cannot say if you are rich. Well, I'm rich, and you wouldn't know it, but I have more temptations than any of you. And you cannot say, well, I'm of a certain race, or I'm of a certain background, or I'm of a certain educational level. And you can't say, you don't know my circumstances. You don't know what I'm going through. According to our text, you cannot do that, believer. You are not uniquely You are free from fierce temptations and you are not uniquely overwhelmed by fierce temptations. Every man and woman who has ever lived on earth has been tempted in those common forms that Satan presents. So now our second heading. Second heading is this. This is really the second truth that I want you to see. God is faithful to his beloved by protecting them from being overpowered by the evil one. Long point, let me restate it. God is faithful to his beloved by protecting them from being overpowered by the evil one. Here's what I mean by that. Look at the second clause in our verse, verse 13. God is faithful. Don't you love that? God is faithful. Now he's gonna explain how so. How is God faithful to us in the midst of temptation? Well, he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. Now if there is a puzzle in interpreting this verse, verse 13, I think the puzzle is a question over the tone of the apostle. And this matters, especially for me as I'm trying to preach this, because depending on the apostle's tone, it's gonna, It's gonna affect the way that I preach it and present it to you. So what is his tone? I think there are two options here. Is Paul being forceful? Or is he being comforting? If he is forceful, we are to hear Paul, if he were to read it aloud, he might sound something like this. No temptation has overtaken you, Corinthians, except what is common to man. But God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. Is Paul sarcastic? Or is it the second option? Is he providing consolation? If he were providing consolation, perhaps the tone would be like this. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful and he cares for you and he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. Well, Paul speaks in the book of 1 Corinthians in all sorts of ways. It's a lengthy letter, and at times in this letter, he condemns the Corinthians. He points out very serious sins to the Corinthians. He rebukes them. He warns them. He pleads with them to obey. But this letter is not one long rebuke. So my take on this is that Paul is comforting the Corinthians in verse 13. There is no single word that tells us his tone or his posture. We have to read the context. And this matters because if you look at verses one through 12, he details the history of Israel for us. If you look especially at verses six through 11, we can see various forms of Israel's sin. Look there with me. Verse seven, do not become idolaters as were some of them, the Israelites were idolaters. We saw that in the book of Judges too. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play, nor let us commit sexual immorality as some of them did. Nor let us tempt Christ as some of them did. And they were destroyed by the serpents. Nor let us complain as some of them also complained and were destroyed as by the destroyer. Now all of these things happened as examples for our admonition. And then verse 12 he says, take heed lest you fall. So he gives this long warning, verses six through 12, and now verse 13. Is he still warning them? Is he chiding them? Is he coming at them? I don't think so. Rather, I think, Paul gives them this history and then stops, verse 13, and comforts them. That's the message, that's the main message I hope you get tonight. They need to recognize the Corinthians do, that they do not have to sin. Though there be enticements all about them, they need the apostle to tell them, we do not have to fall like the Israelites did. Remember where they're at, they're in Corinth. What city was like Corinth in the ancient world? All the temptations about them, the sexual immorality was rampant. Temple prostitution, all sorts of things. The Corinthians had temptations all about them. And perhaps as they're reading through this letter, and they read through the history of Israel and say, if the Jews sinned, if they couldn't stand, what hope do we have? And then Paul says, verse 13, God is able to make you stand. It's comfort, I think. Another clue that it's comfort is verse 14. Paul calls the Corinthians, my beloved. Right after verse 13, he looks at them and he says, if you will, my beloved. He cares for the Corinthians. He wants what is best for them. And if verse 13 is a comfort, an appeal to withstand temptation and idolatry, right after that appeal, you can almost hear the voice, my beloved. And then follow the rest of the paragraph. My beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men. And then he says, judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? Can you hear his tone? I think this is the tone that we should walk away with. Paul is appealing to them to withstand the day of temptation by looking to the sweetness of the blessings we have in Christ. The very cup we share, it's not just any old cup, it's the most precious drink there could be, it's the blood of Christ. Flee idolatry, Corinthians, for God has given you the cup above all cups, the blood of Christ. to wash away your sins. For this reason, I think 13 is comfort. He's not chiding them. He's warning them, and then he's offering them this hope that we have in Christ. Look to the cup that we drink. It's the blood of Christ. An additional reason I think verse 13 is written to console the Corinthians, if I can be frank with you, is because John Calvin, Matthew Henry, John Gill, and perhaps a host of others think that verse 13 is written to comfort the Corinthians. I take solace in that. Calvin says this, I am of the opinion that verse 13 is intended for their consolation, lest, on hearing of such appalling instances of the wrath of God, they should feel discouraged. I think that's exactly right. Paul does not want them to feel overpowered with alarm, to use Calvin's words. So back to our heading now. God is faithful to his beloved by protecting them from being overpowered by the evil one. God is comforting the church through the apostle Paul in verse 13. He warns them, and then he gives them hope. And you could say, yes, there are trials all about you, Corinthians. And if you want, let's insert ourselves here. There are temptations all about you, Americans. But believer, despite the temptations that come upon you, God will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability to withstand the temptation. That may sound too lofty for some of you. I don't know. I hope not, because the text is so plain. And I'm so thankful that it's so plain. There may be pornography a few button clicks away. There may be belligerent coworkers that you have to work alongside. There may be temptations from family members, friends, temptations that come from your own heart, outside forces from Satan himself. No matter where they come from, they will not be too much for you, believer. That is, if you look to God, this offer of protection. is there. Now note, this offer of protection is not for everyone. If you are not in Christ, this offer is not for you. This is an appeal to come to Christ, really. God does not promise to protect unbelievers from the wiles of Satan. God's covenant of grace is not with all the world, but with the church. God's protection is for the church. Consider Jesus when he prayed, John 17. I pray for them. He's talking about believers. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me. Jesus' prayer is for us, for the church. He says it plainly. I do not pray for the world, but for the ones you gave me. Keep them in your name. And then he says, keep them from the evil one. That's his prayer. So this power to withstand temptation is something that Jesus himself prayed for us for. Verse 13 says, God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. You will never be tempted, so much so that you have to sin. You can never make an excuse for yourself. You will never be in a spot where you just go, I had to sin, I had to. God is a loving father, he will never put you in a scenario like that, where you must sin against his fatherly rule. Imagine that, God putting you in a situation where you have to sin against his fatherly rule, that's impossible. He is faithful to you, very specifically in this verse, by always giving you what you need to obey. Do you believe that? When we ask for daily bread, he gives us daily bread. When we ask, God help me in the midst of this temptation, he gives us what we need to resist temptation. That's the word. Jesus also, John 10, says that my Father has given them to me, my Father is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch my sheep out of the Father's hand. That's where you are, believer. You are in the Father's hand. That's where you are. You cannot say that if you were in the Father's hand that you are in a scenario in which you have to sin. Or that you couldn't help but sin. It's impossible. The third heading, final heading is this. God is faithful to his beloved by providing them a way of escape. God is faithful to his beloved by providing them a way of escape. And this is the last clause in the verse. With the temptation, God will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. So God is faithful towards us in a countless number of ways. And this last phrase is yet another way that he is faithful to us, his beloved church. He provides us a way of escape. So if you are in Christ, God has rescued you out of the kingdom of darkness, puts you into the kingdom of light, and now Satan has no power over you. You do not have to obey him. He is not your master. And then there's more. 2 Peter 1. His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. And then the verse goes on. You, believer, have escaped. Same word from 1 Corinthians. You have escaped the corruption that is in the world. In this morning's sermon from Exodus, Pastor Ryan preached. We heard God instruct Moses to confront Pharaoh and to tell Pharaoh, I loved this line, by the way. Moses went into Pharaoh and told him, essentially, You've got something that belongs to me, and I want you to let it go. That's what God says to Pharaoh. You've got something that belongs to me, and I want you to let it go. Think about that for a moment. When we sin, it's as if we go back to Pharaoh, isn't it? We go and we sit in the land of slavery, but you do not belong in the land of slavery, Christian. You may wander into Egypt, but that is not because God tempted you to go back there. You sin, and you go back to the land of slavery, even if it's only temporarily. Of course, if you're in Christ, it's only temporarily, because you want to, but you do not have to go back there. Time and again, Satan will call you to sin. He will call you to look back at this other kingdom that you came from. And what do you do? Do you peek over your shoulder and look back? Ah, I kind of forgot what it was like. Maybe it was good over there. Do you do that? Do you peek back at that other kingdom? It's like peeking back at Egypt. The Israelites did. They escaped from Egypt and yet then they looked back and they said, you know, it wasn't that bad back there. Had food, had shelter. Verse 13 is telling us that God will provide us a way of escape. By that, it doesn't mean that we just sit idly and we just look around, and then, oh, there's the way of escape, and we go. It's not simply that, I don't think. I think, rather, the waiting we do is a little bit different. The watching for an escape route is a little bit different. I think it's active. I think you have to be vigilant here. Yes, keep your eyes open, but keep your eyes open as if there's a thief coming in the night, coming to tempt you, because that's the reality. We're not to live carefree and unawares. Expect temptation to come. Peter also tells us, do not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you, as if something strange were happening to you. Rather, expect temptation to come your way. We're to be like those young women who had oil for their lamps waiting for the bridegroom. They were ready, they were alert. Some were not. So when we look for this escape, we're gonna be active, to be vigilant. We're also to pray for a way of escape. You may not see the way of escape until you pray. In fact, if you look at the Lord's Prayer, this is one of the essential prayers that Christians are to pray. And I would suggest, or to preach rather, you should be praying this regularly. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. That's a basic Christian routine prayer that we need to be praying. How often do you pray that? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Ask God for the way of escape. Be vigilant, be watchful. He will provide for you. The truth is plainly written in verse 13. Well, now for some application. I have a number of applications. I'll get through several of them, Lord willing. The first application is this. Rest in God's power to keep you. This is something we've already said, essentially, but I wanna add something here. You do not have to fear that you'll sin. I think that's part of what the Corinthians were experiencing, is that they were overwhelmed with the sin that was within their church, and then they look at Israelite history, and they're overwhelmed, and they may just be thinking to themselves, like, how can we not sin? But we do not have to fear that we will sin. Matthew Henry says this, you should not be terrified and amazed for our trials, our temptations, they will be proportioned to our strength or our strength will be supplied in proportion to our temptation. In other words, God will meet your needs in Christ Jesus when you are tempted. You have no excuse. Second application is this, never justify your sin. Never justify your sin. That may sound like a strong statement. You say, I don't justify my sin. Do you? You might say to yourself that you could never rise to a certain level of obedience. You might be thinking to yourself, I could never be the kind of Christian who does this. I could never be the kind of Christian who does this. I just can't imagine not yelling at my children. I just do not have the ability to stop being harsh with my spouse. I just don't have that self-control. I do not have the ability to stop lusting. I do not have the ability to stop drinking too much. I do not have the ability to stop some addiction, and on and on the list might go. Do you justify your sin? Do you find yourself justifying it? Verse 13 says, you have no excuse. God will keep you. He has the power, of course, to keep you from sinning, and he provides a way of an escape. He will not let you be overwhelmed by temptation. Do you ever tell yourself, I just don't have the energy to obey God from the heart. Do you find yourself, when you are tired, giving yourself an excuse to sin? Well, I did that just because I was tired. That seems to be a downfall for some. We just get tired. It may be, indeed, that you need sleep. That's a good remedy. I would recommend that. That would be part of the fight against sin. But don't let your tiredness be an excuse to do something you shouldn't do. It may be someone gets tired or bored from doing the same job year after year after year. Don't really like my job, I'm kind of bored. And how often will Satan use boredom or discontent to entice church sinners into sinning? But even then, believer, you have no excuse for sin. Adam, when he was confronted by God for his sin, he tried to justify it, didn't he? Adam's red-handed. He hides. And what does he tell God? This is all of us, by the way. This is what we do. But the text says we should not do this. And Adam said, the woman whom you gave me, she gave me the fruit. And then I ate, and then I sinned. You see that justification? Eve's no better, she tries to do the same. The serpent, he tricked me, and then I ate. Do you do the same thing? I'm just overwhelmed, I gave in to the temptation. Or do you say other people do worse things than me? And on the excuses can go, let us not justify our sinning. That's one of the implications of this text. Another implication is this. Do not make excuses for your children's sins, your spouse's sins, or your neighbor's sins. That is your Christian neighbor. I have a friend who is a big Virginia Tech fan, and one Saturday night, he complained and complained and complained over a football game that Virginia Tech lost. That was their habit, at least at the time. It wasn't a huge shock or anything. No offense to Virginia Tech fans. And why did my friend suggest that Virginia Tech lost? The referees. It was the referees, of course. It wasn't the fact that the other team scored more points, so much as it was that the referees caused them to lose. Virginia Tech fans, for what it's worth, they're not the only ones who have ever blamed the refs. Yes, the refs may have influenced the game, but they did not make anyone lose. My friend had blinders on. He could not see his team's deficiencies so much as he saw the deficiencies in the referees that evening. And parents, might we do that same thing? Do we see our children's sins for what they are? Or do we see, rather, the difficult circumstances that are putting pressure on them? How often have you heard someone say, well, my son, he's a really good boy, He just hung around the wrong crowd. Or he's just really been stressed lately and just hasn't been doing his schoolwork like he should. Parents should provide mercy, but parents should not minimize their children's sin or make excuse for their kids. Instead, parents, let us point our children to God's provision when they are tempted. Like us, they will be tempted. God will, like us, he will care for them and provide for them a way out of temptation. We can offer the same source of counsel to our spouses, neighbors, siblings, and others. So let us imitate Paul in this way. Paul comforts the Corinthians by providing them with this great truth. He tells the Corinthians, rest in this fact that God will empower you to resist the evil one. May we tell that to one another, perhaps even this evening. This is the counsel that we should give one another, give to our children, give to our spouses. Another application, get to two or three or more of these. I have a load of these, I won't get to all of them. Do not grow weary of doing good. Do not grow weary of doing good. You can actually get tired of doing good works. The scriptures actually exhort us to continue doing good works, and the reason it exhorts us to continue doing good works is because it is possible that believers will just get tired. A deacon can just get tired of doing his deacon work. An elder can just get tired of doing his elder work. A mother can just get tired. I'm just doing the same thing all the time. But the Scriptures exhort us, do not grow weary of doing this good thing you were doing. Because if you stop doing these good acts that you're doing, what are you doing? You're sinning. You're not resisting the evil one, and we've already examined the text tonight, and the text tells us God will provide a way of escape. You have no excuse to sin. You have no excuse to stop doing good works. God will provide for you the strength you need. God will give you his daily bread. That's the exhortation. A few more. Another application is this, know that God cares for you. This is the premise, I think, of the entire sermon. After all of these warnings, there's this reminder from Paul to the Corinthians, God cares for you, Corinthians. You do not have to sin. Paul warns them, and then he comforts them, and God cares for us, too. He cares for this particular church. He does not want you to sin. He doesn't. He does not want us to think that we have to sin. Rather, God provides for us. He places our feet on the path of life. He puts us in a church where we are regularly hearing the word of God. We're taking of the Lord's Supper. God cares for you. He cares about your holiness. And he will provide a means for you to grow in your holiness. Last piece of application is this, rejoice that Christ obeyed for you. Rejoice that Christ obeyed for you. He never gave in to sin. And in the end, where will you get your comfort tonight as you leave this evening? Where will you get your comfort? Will you walk away this evening and say, you know, I actually do a pretty good job of resisting temptation. Is that gonna be your ultimate comfort as you go? No, and I think all of you in here, the ones that I know, I don't think any of you are walking out the door thinking that. I think those of you whom I know, the beloved of this church, the members of this church, you, like me, will praise God as you walk away, because you have fallen time and again. You have not resisted the temptation, even though God has promised to provide for you a way of escape, and you failed. And how many times have you failed? Even though you've done that, even though you sin, and then you sin again, Yet God has sent his son, his son Jesus, obeyed on your behalf. He resisted the temptation of the evil ones. Satan promised him the world, but Jesus took it to the cross, and he died a bloody death. He took the wrath that you deserve for sinning. He was killed, he took the penalty you deserve, and he rose from the dead. Death could not keep him. and his obedience is now ours. You are righteous because of him. He escaped the corruption that is in the world, and though we did not, we can if we are in him. So this is an appeal for you this evening. Come to Christ, for he obeyed, he resisted the devil, and he conquered the grave. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you for Jesus, who did obey on our behalf. And though none of us have resisted the evil one, he has, and we are thankful for his example. I pray you'll draw people to yourself tonight. And we pray, Lord, for all of us in this room, that we will grow in holiness. May we never justify our sin, but hope in you for a way of escape. In Christ's name we pray, amen.