Beloved, Flee Idolatry

¹² Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. ¹³ No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.¹⁴ Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. [1 Corinthians 10:12-14]

8 things we learn (at minimum) about a Christian’s war with sin from these verses.

1. Humility is the guardrail.

If we learn nothing else here, it should be that we are just as susceptible to falling as the Israelites were. If we read about them falling into the sin of idolatry and think, “of foolish Israelites, how could they?” we have totally missed God’s point of putting it in the Bible. We are meant to read about their falling when they had all the grace of being in God’s people and come away not pridefully thinking “oh that could never be me” but instead “oh but for the grace of God there go I!”

If it could happen to the Israelites who had all this privileged access to the Lord, it should cause us who think we stand to humbly take heed lest we fall too. If we will resist sin, if we will remain faithful in the face of temptation, it will not be because we are stronger than the Israelites or smarter or more firm in the Lord, it will be because we humbly acknowledge how vulnerable to sin we are. Perhaps counter-intuitively, it is being humbly honest about our weakness in the face of sin that is the guardrail to falling off into it.

Why? Because if we humbly admit how vulnerable we are to sin we will actually be on guard against it and lean into the only one who can sustain us: God himself.

2. Your temptation is generic.

This is the first part of verse 13. In our battle against sin, it can be tempting (pun intended) to think that our temptation is something unique. Maybe in what it is or the strength it seems to have on us, we can think that the temptation we are experiencing is unique to us. That it’s an especially big or hard case. And what Paul says here is that that is exactly not the true, the opposite is.

We are not special cases, that was the first point–humility–and neither is the temptation we battle. Instead, it’s common, it’s generic. It’s run of the mill. It’s average joe. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. The temptation that presses on you, that overtakes you or lay holds of you as the greek says, is strong, it is hard to resist, it is painful and a whole host of other adjectives.

But whatever else it is, it is not unique or special. It is common to humanity. Maybe the exact specifics of how you experience it may be different because you are a unique human, but as far as the temptation that lands on you goes, billions of others have gone through it before you in various forms and intensities. And maybe it is just me, but that is so helpful to realize.

It means I’m not a freakshow, it means I’m not up against something no one has ever faced before, it means I am not isolated or alone in it, or in a class by myself. It means other people get it. Every temptation I face, I think it is safe to say, there are likely millions of other humans facing it as well, including brothers and sisters of mine. And Christ himself in some way because he was tempted in every way hebrews says.

And so we and the temptation to sin we face, whatever its form or strength, is not new or unique or particular to me. It is common, it is geneic, it has been faced by billions before me and millions alongside me at this point in history, I am not alone in it. I am not a special case. The temptation that takes hold of me is down right generic and so to be expected. I find that to dwarf the monster of temptation and it is a relief to me.

3. God is our guarantee

Isn’t it a relief that your faithfulness is not what any of this ultimately hinges on? You are called to be faithful, but that isn’t what any of this depends on. Your shoulders, your strength, your sustaining power are simply not what matters here, not ultimately. God is. And God is faithful. He guarantees himself to you and therefore you are ssrued not becoming like the Israelites.

And that is the way to read verse 13. Yes God is just faithful in a general sense. But that phrase comes in the middle of this context talking about our war with sin. So “God is faithful” is specifically about God being faithful, trustworthy, our guarantee in the face of sin. Not you. God. He is what your battle with sin depends on. And he is faithful.

Now how does God exhibit that faithfulness in our battle with sin? Three ways these verses give us:

4. God grants temptation and 5. God guards us in it

Don’t miss what Paul is saying here: “God will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also...” What’s he saying? He’s saying that God grants temptation and guards us in it. Now I am not saying that God tempts us, James 1:13 literally says God does not tempt toward sin. But he is sovereign over all things and that includes the temptation we experience. So, in an ultimate sense, temptation is granted by God.

And if that sounds crazy that God grants temptation, and to clear, I simply mean that he is ultimately the one allowing it (it isn’t happening outside his will), just look at the Lord’s prayer where he is the one we ask to not lead us into it. Why would we ask the Lord that if he wasn’t the one soverignly granting or not granting that temptation knock on our door? Not only that, but it is the Holy Spirit that leads Jesus into the desert and the text says, “to be tempted.”

So, God grants the temptation we face. And yet, the other thing to see is that he guards us in it. He doesn’t allow it to be more than we could resist. He grants that temptation come and guards it from being more than we can handle. Now this isn’t the cringy facebook post about God not giving us more than we can handle. He does often allow us to be pressed beyond ourselves so that we can rely on his strength.

What this verse is saying is that if we fall to temptation, we can’t say, “well it was just too strong. it was too much. God made me do it by letting such a strong temptation come my way.” No. God grants the temptation, but he never grants temptation that we lack the ability to resist.

How do we know? The last thing here:

6. God gives escape routes.

We are never tempted beyond our ability because God is always giving us ways of escaping the temptation he grants. So he grants temptation, he guards it from being beyond our ability, and he does so by giving us ways of escape from temptation. He never leaves us in the lurch. He never leaves us without a way of escape. He is not some impossible parent giving tests we can’t possibly succeed in so that we are a constant disappoinment. He does allow temptation, but he never let’s it be beyond our Spirit-empowered ability where it is for sure we will fall, instead he guards us by giving us a way of escape from the temptation he grants.

7. The goal is “endurance”.

The goal of your battling temptation is not to get the temptation to go away. Yes, of course we long for that. We are desperate for the moment of temptation to die out and for its pull on us to be less strong. But that isn’t the goal, it actually isn’t what we are after. Look at the ending of verse 13: “that you may endure it.”

Our goal in battling temptation is not to eradicate it. It’s far simpler and manageable than that. God is not asking us to eradicate temptation from our life or even the specific temptation we feel in a given moment, he is after our endurance in the face of temptation not the removal of feeling tempted. Do you see the difference? God is not asking us to make the feelings stop, he isn’t asking that we not feel tempted anymore, he is providing a way of escape that we “ENDURE” it. That we bear it. That we take the weight on our shoulders and walk with it without sucombing to it.

I know what we most want in the moment of temptation is for it to leave. And it will at some moment. But our part in it is far humbler: not that we stop being tempted, but that we simply endure it by taking the way of escape God provides. We escape by enduring and through enduring we escape it. You don’t need to get the temptation to stop, it is allowed to remain, God is sovereign over its presence or not. You need only wear it like a weighted backpack. And because of his power, you have the ability to do so.

8. The grace of our identity.

In verse 14 Paul mentions again what he said back in verse 7 which is the main command of this entire section: flee idolatry. But notice what he calls the Corinthians because it makes all the difference.

He calls them “beloved.” In other words, they are to flee idolatry because they are already beloved, not to be the cause of being beloved. They are fighting because they are already God’s, not to become his. And so with us. We flee idolatry, we flee sin not to be the cause of our being loved, but because we already are. Whether we fall or not to temptation, we are beloved. And counterintuitively, that is the best motivation and place to fight from.

If we think we are earning or we could lose our standing, the pressure will sink us. But if we go into the fight knowing that no matter what happens we will have the smile of our father beaming down on us because of what Christ has done for us, if we know the war is already won and doesn’t depend on this specific battle, then we will be free to fight unencumbered by the impossible weight of earning or maintaining his love. We already have it, we can’t lose it. Get out there you have nothing to gain or lose. You are already beloved. Just go live like what you already are in Christ.

Now those realizations of our battle against sin should change a lot about how we battle temptation. But I just want to share one way. It’s this: when temptation arises, this all should change the way we pray. If temptation is not extraordinary but generic, if God is the guarantee in our battle with it, if he is the one granting it, if he guards us and won’t let it be too much for us, if he promises to give a way of escape from it, if the goal of our battle is to endure rather than eradicate it, if the grace of the gospel sustains us either way, then what else can we do but go to him saying,

‘God I know this is from you hand to sanctify me, thank you that it isn’t too much or unique to me, show me the way of escape, help me to endure it until it subsides. I am yours whatever the result of this battle. And you are faithful. Amen.”

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