1 Corinthians 10:13 There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful… The word "temptation" in the first passage is the same as "trial" in the second; and this difference only reproduces the different use of the original word by Paul and Peter respectively. The testing to which Paul refers arises from solicitation to wrong-doing; while Peter speaks of a testing that takes the form of persecution. Our discipline arises first from the sin that is in us, and. secondly, from the sin that is without us. The first constitutes our temptation; the second our trial. The first has to do with our salvation; the second with our equipment for Christian service. I. IT IS A UNIVERSAL LAW THAT A MAN'S REAL LIFE ONLY BEGINS WHEN HE HAS FOUGHT AND WON HIS FIRST GREAT BATTLE WITH SIN, OR WHEN HE HAS MET AND ENDURED HIS FIRST GREAT CRUSHING TRIAL. And yet, it is hardly less universally true that every man, when the hour of his temptation or his trial dawns, imagines that both are peculiar. As long as the thunder-cloud does not gather above their heads and burst upon them, they see nothing strange in the ways of God with men; hut, when the storm breaks upon them, it is "something very strange, very peculiar," they say. Now the great temptations in this century were never better summarised than they were in the Ten Commandments. The same is true of trials. They have their sources in the poverty, sickness, and bereavements which are common to man. You cannot mention a temptation or a trial of which you will not be able to find illustrations in your own community, to say nothing of past generations; so it will be to the end of time. II. NOW, THIS FACT OF THE UNIVERSALITY OF TEMPTATION AND OF TRIAL SUGGESTS THAT THERE MUST BE SOME PROFOUND NECESSITY FOR ITS EXISTENCE. And this necessity is partly — 1. Because we are human — creatures of limited capacities. How many things we pant to do! How many things we want to know! And yet every advance only renders us more conscious of our constitutional limitations. Now, it is a severe trial to a man who is wide awake for him not to know what he wants to know, and to do what he wants to do. It is just here that we discover how it was possible for man, without any tendencies to sin, to fall from his first estate. The temptation was to resent the limitations that were imposed, to seek after a freedom that should be like the freedom of God. There will be always many more things in heaven and in earth than our loftiest philosophies dream of; problems in the moral government of God that stagger us, and where faith in His goodness and righteousness is our only refuge. 2. Because we are sinners, and because a heroic treatment is needed if we are to secure salvation from sin. "We are full of pride and obstinacy, and that covetousness which is idolatry, and self-righteousness. And so comes in the serious discipline of life, to teach us our weakness and show u s the weakness of our supports, that we may hasten to find refuge in His grace. III. SO UNIVERSAL AND NECESSARY A DISCIPLINE AS THIS MUST BE PERFECTLY ADJUSTED TO OUR CAPACITIES AND NECESSITIES. God does not deal with men in the mass. He deals with each soul singly. In all wise parental government there is the most careful study of each child's peculiarities. One needs to be pushed; another needs the check. As a father pitieth his child, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. 1. No man is subject to any temptation for which there is not provided a way of escape; and there is no burden that needs to involve necessarily any serious injury. We hear a great deal about irresistible temptations, but there is no such thing. Sin always begins in an evil heart, and for the possession of that evil heart the sinner alone is responsible — not his circumstances nor the government of God. It is the plea of the devil when men say, "The temptation was so strong that I could not resist it." God bars no man's way up so that it becomes necessary for him to fall into captivity and to abide there. 2. And, as there are no irresistible temptations, so are there no trials so crushing that a man needs to be buried under them. God is too kind ever to impose any burdens that are heavier than our shoulders can bear. 3. And this brings me to the promised and assured deliverance. The fight may be long and hard, but it need not be of uncertain issue. The trial may be very severe, but God's pruning-knife never goes further than the requirements of the case. Every death-pang in your experience may be, by the grace of God, a birth-cry. The grave where your dearest hopes are buried may be the garden where the fairest flowers are blooming, filling your life with the very fragrance of heaven. 4. Perhaps some of you are tempted to say that your experience is like that of the apostle of the Gentiles, who had his thorn in the flesh. Well, that drove him to his knees when he found God's grace sufficient, and after thirty years of service for Christ, he learned to rejoice in tribulation and to glory in infirmities, because in his own weakness the strength of Christ was magnified. 5. But deliverance is not the sweetest nor last word in the gospel of consolation. The discipline is intended to leave us richer than we could have been without its endurance. Temptation and trial are God's drill and dynamite to blow up the obstructions that choke the channels of our affections and energies until the whole broad stream of God's life shall course through our own and have its own sweet will. There are three forms of gladness — the gladness that wells up from the comparatively innocent heart of the child, and which is only more intense in the youth; the joy which takes to itself the form of quiet contentment in the maturer years of manhood; and the blessedness of a ripe old age that has learned to submit its own will to the will of God. (A. J. F. Behrends, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. |
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