1 Corinthians 10:1-22 A Stern Warning

The Authority of God’s Word and the Purpose of the Gathering

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filcik preaches from his sermon series titled First Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in.

Good morning and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filcik. I'm the lead pastor here, and thanks for taking time to gather together. I recognize there's all different kinds of places you could be, including still in bed, and so it's always a great opportunity that we have to gather together and honor Christ.

Throughout the week, I pray that God would meet us all together in the pages of his word as I study, as I let the word wash over me, and then try to bring it here to make sense of it in our current context.

The power of the word is in the self-disclosure of our God, him telling us who he is, him telling us how he rolls, and then, in turn, what he desires of us and what he has done for us. He shows us who he is, and when we truly believe that what the Bible says is true of him, and we believe that this is true of what he actually is, we find motivation then to go and live accordingly, and so that's the goal of our gathering, is that our faith would be expanded by taking in his word, believing it, and living it.

We're going to be continuing on in First Corinthians for two weeks, and then we're going to kind of turn into a little bit more of a Christmas theme for the next two weeks. Then it'll be New Year's, and off into the new year.

Can you guys believe it's already here? This is kind of crazy. We're even going to start our Christmas songs this morning, but this morning we're going to receive a stern warning from the apostle Paul, not exactly a Christmas message.

He reminds us in this passage that we serve a God who doesn't play around with sin. It is indeed a stern warning. I don't know what you thought you were signing up for this morning, but this is the text we're going to go through.

God judges sin. According to the book of Romans, his wrath is being poured out on all ungodliness and all unrighteousness, and Romans also makes clear that without the gospel, that tsunami of just wrath and judgment would sweep us away too, right?

We know we're unrighteous. We know that we are unjust. We know that we are ungodly. According to the standards of what is written in Scripture, we don't measure up, and so we would also be under that wrath, were it not for the gospel.

So our text this morning, despite its stern warning, is not without encouragement. I hope you walk away with some encouragement, but the church in Corinth had wandered off into many sinful patterns. There were divisions.

There was sexual immorality. There was grumbling against leadership, testing the Lord through ongoing associations with idolatry. This church was pretty rough around the edges. There were even, to the degree that earlier in 1 Corinthians, we heard that they're suing one another.

They're literally taking each other to court. That's the kind of divisiveness that's going on in this ancient church, and so Paul will take us all on a brief tour here for the Corinthians' benefit, but also for ours.

He takes us on a tour of the Old Testament people of God, showing that God disciplines those that he loves. He's going to say in this text things like, remember the thousands dead with snake bites in the wilderness?

Remember the way that an entire generation passed away without the blessing of experiencing the land of promise? Because of their idolatry, because of their grumbling, because of their immorality, these things serve.

He's going to say two different times in this text, hey, let these be examples to you. Let these be examples to us here in this New Testament era, and we are meant to learn about our God by observing the way he worked with sinful people in the past.

We live by grace, but church, do not be deceived. We live by grace, but grace doesn't make God okay with sin. Grace doesn't mean that God is okay with your sin and he's like, okay, we're all good. Grace doesn't make him okay with sin.

Grace merely diverts the holy wrath that we deserve toward his son. No, he's not okay with sin. He will judge every single sin, and it's a question of whether you will pay the price for it or whether Christ already paid the price for it.

The warnings to us are real because even his chosen people, according to this text, will receive discipline. So, let's allow God to issue a stern warning to us this morning. Let's let his word wash over us in a way that is fresh to our ears, that impacts the way that we live this week, and let's do so by opening our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 10, verses 1 -22.

Again, 1 Corinthians 10, verses 1 -22, recast God's amazing, glorious, holy, and this morning stern word to us as a church. He doesn't want us to be unaware. 1 Corinthians 10, 1 -22. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were, as it is written.

The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and 23 ,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.

Now, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instructions, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall.

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.

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then?

That food offered to idols is anything? Or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? Let's pray. Father, your word takes us on a journey. We go all over the place, from deep encouragements in the Psalms, to gaining voices, to lament, to some of the whimsical stories, to the depths of conviction.

Father, I pray that you would allow this warning to settle on us. And despite the fact that this holiday season, we want to think light thoughts, and we want to think frivolous thoughts, and we want to think joyful thoughts.

And there is something that is really awesome about incarnation. There's something awesome about the way that you have set forth to redeem broken and sinful people like us. There is also a warning that comes in that, because that baby that was sent to us came to be tortured and to die for us.

Father, I pray that we would see what our sins deserve, and that that would empower us and enable us to rejoice all the more in what we've been saved from. Father, I pray that you would allow this passage to be fuel for our lives of doing battle with sin, sin that rages up within us.

Not doing battle with the sins of the world out there, but doing battle with the sins in our own hearts and in our own lives. That when we face temptation, we would lean on you, the faithful one. And that you would make us stronger as a result of gathering together this morning.

Make us stronger as a result of having the opportunity to sing songs of praise to you in the gathering of your people, to hear from your holy word, a word that wouldn't come natural to us. We don't like strong and harsh words.

Father, I pray that these examples that have been recorded and written down for our instruction would instruct, rebuke, correct. In the name of Jesus, amen. Go ahead and be seated. But if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes or use the restrooms, those are out the barn doors down the hallway on the left-hand side.

But I do ask that you re-find your spot in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 10, having that in front of you on your lap would be really beneficial if it's a device or a scripture journal or whatever. Taking advantage of that so that you can see that what I'm saying, I'm going to be referring to the text often in this message.

Judgment, sin, grace, discipline, wrath, eternal security, loss of salvation. All of these ideas are going to swirl around this passage. And I would suggest that each and every person here with various personalities will find something to focus on in this passage.

Your heart is going to be pulled in a direction based on the way that you perceive the world around you. For those who are, for example, fearful and are constantly fearful that they haven't measured up to God.

Some who are Christians might even fear losing their salvation. There is enough in this passage here that it could keep you up at night. For those who believe that you cannot lose your salvation, you will find verses to cling to in the midst of this passage, at least a verse to cling to.

All of us will see in this passage wrath toward sin from a holy and righteous God. Some will see discipline, but I think all of us will receive this morning at least a very stern warning to ourselves.

I have to state this at the beginning as a disclaimer of sorts. I am compelled. I'm telling you my bias. I am compelled to keep this passage that we're looking at today consistent with the rest of Scripture.

So that's one of the tasks that I have each and every time I come to a passage of Scripture to preach it, is to make sure that what I say up here meshes with the rest of the Holy Word. I'm committed to the conviction that all of Scripture is consistent and is unified in a common message.

And so I can never look at a single passage without letting the rest of the flow and flavor of Scripture impact what I'm reading and what I'm preaching. So I am, as I preach this, I am both convinced that Scripture gives genuine warnings to believers, genuine warnings to the church about the way we live, and equally I'm convinced that throughout the pages of Scripture you will find confidence and assurance that He who called us is faithful to keep us for Himself.

Both of those are true. Warnings about the way you live and trust that He will sustain you. Do you get what I'm saying in that? Both are true. We have both reasons for deep comfort when we come to Scripture, but also we have the opportunity to take on stern and strong warnings to obey, like in our text today.

A perfect example of this, I just point you to a different passage just for the sake of giving you some breadth to seeing that this is not unique to the passage that I'm preaching. Philippians 2 verses 12 through 13 says this, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out, work out, like work out, like how many of you ever worked out before?

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now, if it ends there, stern warning. But it doesn't end there, it goes on. For it is God who works in you, both to will, that's the part of us that desires something, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Work it out while acknowledging it is God who is at work in you to both give you the desire to obey Him, the desire to love Him, and the work to do to show Him that you love Him. Stern warning to obey in verse 12 of Philippians 2, strong hope that God is working in us to give us a will and actions leading to His good pleasure, verse 13.

Both are consistent there. Both need to be preached. Warnings against sin need to be preached. Hoping God to work in us needs to be preached. We see both in our passage this morning, a heavier emphasis on the warning.

Here are, as our outline for this morning, if you're a notetaker, verses 1 through 11 are the examples. We'll see some ample, quite a few examples here. The examples, verses 1 through 11, the hope, verses 12 and 13, and then the command, verses 14 through 22.

I love how consistent God is to give us hope and to give us a sense of His presence with us and His guiding direction before He issues us commands. So we start this morning with the examples in verses 1 through 11.

Paul starts by informing the Corinthians about their forefathers in the faith. This church was primarily Gentile. They weren't raised in going to Jewish Sunday school, Saturday school, I guess you'd call it.

But they weren't raised in the synagogue. They weren't raised around Judaism. They weren't raised on the Ten Commandments. Most of them were raised on the pagan gods and goddesses. So it's interesting that he sees the church as relating to that Old Testament tradition.

Abraham is now our father too. We are now of the tradition of David and Moses and Joseph and Jacob. How? By faith. They are our fathers in the faith. And he says of our spiritual forebears that they were made participants in the salvation story of God by what he...a phrase that Paul invents here.

It doesn't occur anywhere else. Baptism into Moses. He describes a bit of what that is. Into the process of exodus is what he's really getting to. They passed under the cloud, the cloud that guided them as a cloud of fire by night and a cloud by day.

They passed under the cloud, through the waters. The Red Sea is imaged here. The great miraculous provision of God in delivering his people. He is symbolizing both their baptism and ours here in this passage.

They pass through water. We, in faith, pass through water. The common ground in our baptism is that it's a starting point of a journey as God's people. Our starting point, our baptism into Christ. Their starting point, their baptism into the Red Sea.

Their baptism into the spiritual blessings came through the awesome and glorious works of the exodus. We can read about it in Exodus and in Numbers. Our spiritual blessings come through the awesome works of rescue through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Different but similar. And he's trying here to demonstrate that those Old Testament people received significant blessings and connection with God. They didn't only experience a baptism of sorts, but they also had a communion of sorts, he says.

They were sustained in their walk as God's people through the wilderness by the manna, the bread from heaven that God provided for them. They were sustained in their walk and we are sustained in our walk through this wilderness in which we find ourselves by our routine participation in the bread of communion together.

The remembrance of communion that we participate in each week is meant to be a powerfully re-centering activity to our week. We do it every week as a routine of sustaining our faith and reminding us that we walk by faith and not by sight.

That our trust is placed in what Christ has already done for us. And they all took, not merely the bread, but they all took from the water in the rock. A spirit provided water that miraculously sprung up from a rock in the wilderness.

Now there are some scholars that says that the rock followed them and you might be like, kind of confused. And then it goes on to say the rock was Christ. It's like, how does a rock follow you? There are scholars of the Hebrew language that have concluded, and I did a lot of reading this week, they concluded from Genesis and Numbers, the Hebrew language in those accounts of the water gushing forth from the rock and then what the Jews did after that.

The Israelites wandering in the wilderness, it's quite likely that the Jews took that miraculous rock with them after it had gushed with water. So they literally loaded it on an ox cart and probably pulled it along with them.

As you can imagine, people might do, if something miraculous happens, how many of you would like to commemorate that, right? As a commemoration, like they might not have had the best of intentions in bringing it along with them, but they did.

And so the rock followed them and it makes sense of some of the language in those Old Testament accounts and it makes sense of what Paul says here when he says the rock followed you. But what's more interesting is to see the radical phrase at the end of verse four that I already pointed out, the rock was Christ.

The pre-existence of Christ is worthy of its own sermon or own sermon series, to be honest, but not really from this passage. This has a lot for us to take on and so let me just let this phrase mean what it means and let the implications fall on you as God strikes you with this amazing thought, Christ has been sustaining His people long before He was born.

Christ has been sustaining His people long before He was born. Pre-existence of Christ. Verses one through four serve to show a positive side of the work of God in the life of His Old Testament people.

He was there in their midst just like He is here, maybe even to some degree more visibly than He is here. They received an initiation into the life of God through Exodus. They received a sustaining bread through the manna and water in the wilderness through the rock and Christ went with them, the text is telling us.

They had the benefits and blessings that we have and yet verse five takes a turn for the worse showing us why He's elevating all these great things that they received because there's a nevertheless. Nevertheless is a way of saying that despite all the good, despite all the blessings, despite God's presence with them, nevertheless God was not pleased with them and their bodies were left strewn across the desert.

The Greek word here is for scattered around. The image is not a pretty picture. That took a pretty dark turn. Red sea crossing, water and food in the wilderness, God's provision for them, God's presence with them, scattered bodies everywhere.

What? Goodness Paul, you could have given us a warning at least for the sake of the children, right? Like all of a sudden, boom, dead bodies everywhere. And these things, he says in verse six, serve as an example for us.

It's stated directly in verse six and 11, the word example. These are examples for us to look into and see the way that God works. We've been given numerous examples from the Old Testament regarding the horrible, horrible, horrible consequences of sin, but we still like to try it out anyways just to see if it still works.

Why? Given all the stern warnings, Paul says so that we might not desire evil as they did. Look at verse six. Now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil. But why all the examples?

Why all the illustrations? Why all of this? Why the stories about David's life turning sour after the Bathsheba incident? Why is Cain killing Abel recorded for us? Why the earth opening up and swallowing Korah and his rebellion?

The stoning of Achan? Why the dogs licking up Jezebel's blood in the street? Why all of this? You know, the cringey parts of Scripture, right? The parts that make us uncomfortable. Why, church, to take the shine off sin?

To take the shine off sin. The battle against sin in our hearts takes place at the level of desire. It's what the heart wants, and the heart wants what the heart wants. We desire, to a person in this room, I know something that is true of you, you desire something that God forbids.

Every person, every human born under Adam and Eve have desired that which God prohibits, that which He forbids. We want to try it, see how it works for us. We wonder if it will not work out better for us than God says.

We distrust Him. We think we know better. And the fruit does look good, after all. And the serpent says, God doesn't know what He's talking about. God's just trying to hold you down. He's trying to hold you back from pleasure.

He's trying to hold you back from arriving. He's trying to hold you back from what would make you really arrive in life. Now, I pray regularly that God would expose sin to me for what it is, and I pray the same for you guys.

May we all see it as filth. May we see it as destruction. May we see it as vomit and all refuse, a steaming pile of excrement in our lives. May I see it as a trap, because it is. It's a trap. Some of you are.

Some of you are Star Wars junkies. That's good. We are shown the pain and consequences of sin through these Old Testament accounts to help us recognize the destructive power of sin. It's destructive while showcasing.

These things show us the destructive power of sin while showcasing our need for a Savior and a Rescuer that is to come. These Old Testament accounts still forward in our lives in this day and age, looking backwards on the Rescuer, the Savior who came for us.

But in verses 7 through 11, Paul takes us on a quick video tour of the low points of the exodus. So, he's already shared in verses 1 through 4, like, the good things, the blessings, the way that he brought them out, the way that he was with them, the way he provided for them.

But now, hey, verses 7 through 8, hey, remember that time when they got to Mount Sinai and made that golden calf, rose up and drank and indulged in sexual immorality like the pagans? Remember those fun times when 23 ,000 people fell in one single day?

Oh, those were the days. Or verse 9, oh, remember the poisonous viper incident? Oh, just, I miss the exodus. Snakes everywhere, killing people left and right, bloated bodies, all that pain from the neurotoxins.

The snake is in it is scary, not just because it's snakes, that's enough, right? But also because the sin they committed is one so common in our culture and in our hearts today. What does it say in the text that they committed?

This was a sin of putting Christ to the test. Putting Christ to the test in context, well, how did they do that? They said, if you loved us, Lord, if you loved us, we wouldn't be stuck eating this stinking manna.

If you loved us, we wouldn't be stuck in this economic crisis. If you loved us, our kids would be honoring you. If you loved us, we wouldn't have this diagnosis. If you loved us, fill in the blank. They said, we miss the meat and the leeks and the melons of Egypt, all that plenty that we had as slaves.

If you really loved us, you would give us better now. In essence, offering God a test for their loyalty. If you do this for us, then we will love you. That's testing God. We do this anytime we say to God, if you are good and you love me, then you will fill in the blank.

That's testing the Lord. Not many of us have made golden calves. I hope none of you have a golden calf in your house that you bow to. Not many of us have participated in pagan sexual revelry, but putting Christ to the test to make him prove his love for us, heading closer to home.

But then we get to verse 10. Hey, remember how God's people grumbled and he sent the destroying destroyer? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Grumbled? Grumbled? That's the capital offense? Grumbled and complained? Anybody with me?

Just a little slight raise of the hand. Uh-oh. Grumbling? A capital offense? How are we breathing? By his grace. By his grace. I've done that this week. Matter of fact, maybe during a football game last night.

The noose of this warning is tightening for us here. Do you feel it? Do you feel it getting tighter in here? Do you feel the temperature rising a little bit as you take on these words and you think about what this implies?

Sent the destroying destroyer for their grumbling and complaining? And I think he's got most all of us. If grumbling is a capital offense, we are all in trouble. In this passage, we see more than merely the Old Testament God, though, being all judgy.

Things happened as an example for our instruction. We live, he says, in the final age. And the previous ages have served us as patterns for our blessing and benefit to consider. These examples are to a Corinthian church that has been dabbling in idolatry.

It's to a Corinthian church that's been dabbling in sexual immorality. It's to a church that's putting Christ to the test. It's to a church that is grumbling and complaining. And it is recorded for us because God knows that we also will be tempted by these very same things.

The Warning of the Wilderness Generations

Now, we've seen the examples in verses 1 through 11, and our second section of the text is the hope verses 12 through 13. There is hope in this. This is a short but very important hinge in this text. Verse 12 applies the examples from verses 1 through 11 in a proverbial way.

Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he falls. Anyone who thinks he or she stands take heed. Don't be smug. Don't assume you've arrived. Stay in the battle, church. If you think you're standing, consider these who walked through the actual waters of the Red Sea.

Consider these who watched the water come out of a rock in the desert at the very command of God, who went every morning and collected the very provision of God for their sustenance in the manna given to them.

Consider these who were there in the wilderness, God walking with them, who beheld with their eyes the pillar of fire at night and the cloud leading them by day. And be humbled. Be humbled. They saw things these eyes haven't beheld, and they fell in the wilderness.

There are significant pitfalls associated with overconfidence. It is possible to think too lightly about sin. It is possible to be abusive to grace and to cross the line over into a life of sin without even knowing it.

It is possible to trust in our own ability to stand. And yet, it's vital that we deal with what is meant by fall in verse 12. What does it mean that they fell? Beware if you think you stand lest you fall.

What does that word fall mean? There's a variety of views about this, but I believe that this falling here is consistent with the examples. So, he's giving us examples, and now he wants us to apply those examples.

And what happened to them? What was their fall like? How did they fall? In what way did they fall? They died in the wilderness. A whole generation except for two men, Caleb and Joshua, died off in the wilderness without ever getting into the land that God was giving to His people.

And the problem is when we make it a metaphor. Don't forget, by the way, that this includes Moses himself. Moses himself did not make it into the land of promise. How many of you knew that? He didn't make it in there.

And despite what we tend to do in error, I think, with this passage, is there's a simplistic armchair interpretation that goes into making these metaphors. So, the promised land must equal heaven. The exodus must mean our journey through life, and that's the way we conceive of it kind of without any deeper thinking.

And I'm going to suggest to you, no, no, no. The promised land was a literal land, a literal material reward to the people of God. And the death of the people in the wilderness is not synonymous with their eternal condemnation.

When Moses died without getting into the land of promise, that's not God's way of subtly letting us know that Moses didn't make it to heaven, not at all. I mean, Moses can both have made it into heaven and not got the rewards here in this world, not been given the promised land, not given the fruit of his labor, not achieving because of his anger and frustration and disobedience to God in that moment of striking the rock instead of just speaking God's blessing over it.

And so, he didn't get into the promised land. But is Moses in heaven? Well, I believe he is. I believe he is. He was in this life disciplined as a model for us. The entire generation was strewn across the desert, snake-bitten and rotting, and the sun is a graphic reminder of the consequences, the dire, dire consequences of sin in this life.

The good things of this life were kept from them due to their evil desires. I believe that verse 12 has teeth, but hear me carefully, church, I don't believe it has eternal teeth. In every example, the people, I could say this tongue-in-cheek, the people merely died.

They merely died. I mean, what's the worst that can happen to us? Not death. The worst that can happen to us is eternal condemnation. No, they just merely died. Nothing is said of their eternal destruction here in this passage.

This book, more than any other in the New Testament, it's kind of an interesting book, and when you study it, you actually see that 1 Corinthians conveys a theme that isn't really found anywhere else.

And this book conveys death as a potential discipline for his children. Would God ever take the life of one of his children in order to discipline them? Yes. He speaks of turning a man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that he might be saved in the end, in this letter, in this very book.

It says, turn him over so that his life, his physical life might be destroyed, but he will be saved in the life to come. Coming up in chapter 11 here, and just at the end of the holidays, we'll get back to 1 Corinthians.

In chapter 11, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, 30 through 32, this, that is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. Speaking to the Corinthian church. But if we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. Weakness, illness, and death are shown to be tools of God in the disciplining of his people.

What? Yeah, they are. Those Old Testament examples, bodies in the wilderness, his people. Judged. Disciplined. In the examples from the Old Testament, God's people died for their sinful choices. What am I saying to us recast?

Beware. Be warned. You serve a God who takes sin very seriously. You serve a God who takes sin very seriously. It might be worth mentioning here that the correlation between sin and death is established, strong in Scripture.

But in the most general of ways, through sin, death entered into the world. So all die. And yet I take from this teaching in 1 Corinthians that some believers will be disciplined by God and will fall in their own arrogance and pride.

This entire passage lacks teeth without the warning that's found in verse 12. But there are teeth here. But the warning lacks hope without verse 13. That's why I put verses 12 and 13 together, as they couple together to ultimately, in the end, provide some hope for us.

In verse 13, we find the only positive statement in this entire section of very stern warning. But they serve as an example. These Old Testament people, the people of God, they serve as an example. They failed so miserably.

And we are told to take heed if we think we're standing. How can we have any hope? How can we have any confidence? How can we have any assurance? But verse 12 gives us a hint. If anyone thinks he stands.

How do you think of yourself right now? Are you standing before God in strength? Are you standing before God with hope in your ability to be better than those dumb wilderness wanderers? Do you pride yourself in being better than Israel?

Really? Do you think you are standing in your strength right now? Beware, church. God emphasizes that pride comes before the all. Instead, there is another way to conceive of this life. There's another way to deal with sin.

And it is trust in God to get you through. Amen? Trust in God to carry you. Look at verse 13. First, he tells us that we do not face novel temptations. You have never once been tempted by something that another person hasn't.

It's not new. There's nothing new under the sun. You've never been tempted by something new. We are all on the same boat. But second, God is faithful. God is faithful. Oh, if this was up to us and the emphasis wanted to remain on a rebuke for us and go fix your life, then they would not say God is faithful here.

They'd say you better be faithful. That's what we would expect here if this was not meant to encourage. It's not here you better act faithful, not trust your own consistency. How many of you know that's not leading us anywhere good?

But Paul here in hope points to God. His faithfulness is our only hope. Trusting in our ability is thinking we are standing. But trusting confidently in Christ is to lean on his faithfulness. God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our capacity.

God is mitigating. This is crazy. God is mitigating the level of temptation that each one of us faces according to our distinct and unique abilities to stand up under it. How sovereign is this God who made this universe?

He is not tempting us, but he is limiting the level of temptation that you and I receive. Amen? And further, in his sovereign grace, God providentially offers a way out of every temptation so we could stand up under it.

Here we find both God working and us working in the same text that Paul writes without a shred of indication that he thought he was being inconsistent. God mitigating temptation, making it manageable for us, and God providing a way out while our ability to endure is also held up in the text.

For the Christian, we have a way out of temptation, and the trust and hope here given by Paul is not solely placed on our shoulders. If it was, he ought to say here, when you face temptations, just stand up under it on your own ability.