I please God to bless us together
tonight as we consider his word. Let's turn to the epistle of
Paul to the Corinthians the first epistle and chapter 10 and we'll
read verse 13. That's the first epistle of Paul
to the Corinthians chapter 10 and reading verse 13. 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 a temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able
to bear it. The Apostle was very concerned
about the state and the health of the Corinthian Church. And to such an extent, as we
commence reading this chapter, he says, moreover brethren, I
would not that ye should be ignorant, how all our fathers were under
the cloud and all pass through the sea. And so he goes on to
enumerate several instances when they turn their back upon God
and the terrible consequences of which ensued. And he points
these things out for his great concern for the health of the
souls of these Corinthians. And God has graciously ordained
that such things have been recorded for us today. And therefore,
we should remember those things which are historical, which spoke
of God's mercy, how he dealt with ancient Israel. And the
Apostle comes down and he tells us now all these things happened
unto them for examples. For they are written for our
admonition, from whom the ends of the world are come." It's
not just a historical record in the Word of God, just for
something which tickles our imagination. It's written now, importantly,
for our soul's eternal good, and our soul's eternal benefit. And that's why he tells us, and
they are written for our admonition. upon whom the ends of the world
are come. Wherefore, let him that thinketh,
he standeth, take heed, lest he fall." And such a word is
so very necessary because, you know, left to ourselves, we are
self-righteous. And left to ourselves, we very
quickly say, well, we see someone do something wrong and bad and
we say, well, I wouldn't do that. You know, that's a very dangerous
thing to ever say. Because left to ourselves, we
would do that. And we would follow that way.
And we would not be able to withstand. It's only indeed by the grace
of God that we're able to stand. You know, the Apostle Peter knew
this, didn't he? Poor old Peter. He was so strong
in himself. But he was only strong in himself
until he knew the weakness of himself. It's a good thing when
the Holy Spirit of God shows to us our weakness. And that's
just what occurred in the life of Peter. And he tells us then,
with regards to the Church of God, he says in his first epistle
in the first chapter in the fifth verse, who are kept by the power
of God. That's how we're kept. It's not
because we're strong in ourselves, it's because God keeps us, keeps
us, who are kept by the power of God. I remember an anecdote
of, I think it was two ministers and they were in London on the
underground and they were on the escalator and one was going
up one way and one was going down the other way and they couldn't
have a long conversation. And one said to the other, how
are you? And he just said one word, kept. Well, it's an important word,
isn't it? Now, that's just what Peter tells us here. Kept by
the power of God, through faith, under salvation, ready to be
revealed in the last time. It goes on, wherein ye greatly
rejoice. Though now for a season, if need
be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. What do we have here? There is
no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. There will be temptations. There
will no doubt be many temptations. The devil will always be there,
tempting us one way or another. We won't be free of temptation
this side of the grave. And so the Apostle says, he emphasises
it, in effect, heaviness. We're burdened. Yes, we're bowed
down because of the many temptations which come into our lives. Sometimes it may be that we have
to say, in our heart perhaps, can ever God dwell here in such
a heart as mine? Well, the Apostle, bless God,
understood something of this. He knew what he was writing.
We know it was influenced by the Holy Spirit of God, but nonetheless,
he knew in his heart what he was writing. And so he says,
ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. And it is a sign
and encouragement for the Church of God to know that it is part
of the pathway, the pathway of the righteous to be tempted,
to be tempted perhaps that they are out of the way. And so the
Apostle says this, that The trial of your faith. That's what it
comes down to. The trial of our faith. These
temptations which are a test in time. They are a trial. And he says that the trial of
your faith being much more precious than a gold. Yes, we value gold,
don't we? We know it's a precious metal.
Well, the trine of our faith is much more precious than the
gold that perishes. Though it be tried, tested with
fire, might be found that the praise and honour and glory at
the appearing of Jesus Christ. Now, that's wonderful, isn't
it? But, you know, we don't want
to stop there. The apostle moves on. And it's good if we can move
on. Don't lose sight of this. That
hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man.
But God is faithful. He's faithful. He won't leave
us. Who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able. Now He won't suffer us to be
tempted above. But He will bring us down. He will bring us very
low. And He'll bring us to this place
really, this shrine of our faith. What does it bring us down to?
It brings us down to see nothing in ourselves. It brings us to
look out of ourselves, because we see there's no hope in ourselves.
We see we can't deliver ourselves from temptations. We need the
blessed power of God. So the apostle says, and glory
and the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen, ye love. It's a trial of our faith to
bring us to that place where, having not seen, we love. In whom, though now ye see him
not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your souls. What do we conclude this chapter
with? Even as I please all men in all
things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many,
that they may be saved. Here really are very similar
view, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of
your souls. So, these times of temptation,
manifold temptation, which are common to man. We shouldn't
think that these aren't common to man. They are common to man,
but there's a difference to the people of God. They're common
to man and unconverted man is not worried about them, and sometimes
enjoys them. and sometimes goes after them,
and sometimes fulfils the temptation. But to the true believer, they
are a burden. They are a trouble. They are
not something that we enjoy. And therefore, we understand
what the Apostle says, but God is faithful who will not suffer
you, to be tempted above that ye are able. So we should not be surprised
if we find we have to face times of temptation, because it will
make us cry out to our God. It will make us cry out for mercy. cry out for forgiveness, as we
find the devil sometimes coming in like a flood, because he would
destroy us if he could. My friends, he would do all that
he can, and therefore we should not be surprised, although we
may indeed be in heaviness through manifold temptations. We should
not be surprised, but the great blessing will be If such situations
don't come and leave us in the same unconcerned way, but if
they direct us and drive us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, to
the throne of grace. And we come pleading and seeking
for mercy. So the Apostle says, who will
not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. Now,
the Lord God is faithful. Isn't it wonderful to know tonight
that we have a faithful God. A God who has promised to uphold
his people. He tells us here, but with the
temptation Also, make a way to escape that you may be able to
bear it. A way to escape that we may be
able to bear it. And why is that? It's because
God is faithful. I remember in Jeremiah's day,
Jeremiah was a man of God, but had much opposition in his life. And we can understand a little
of what he faced when he wrote his Lamentations. Those Lamentations. And he tells us, and just ponder
this for a moment, this is a prophet of the Lord, a faithful prophet
of the Lord, a gracious prophet of the Lord, but his testimony
is this. I am the man that has seen affliction
by the rod of his wrath. He has led me. He led me and brought me into darkness
but not into light. Now we might find that strange.
We might not expect that to be true. But this is the word of
God. And he is an honest man. It's good, isn't it, when we
can be honest in our spiritual life. Some people pretend it's
all going one way. Well, it's a balancing of the
clouds in our spiritual life. And so he says, he has led me,
brought me into darkness but not into light. And his conclusion
appeared to be like this. Surely against me is he turned. He turned his hand against me
all the day. There hath no temptation taken
you but such as the commonest man. Yes, but you won't be tempted. Above that ye are able. It may appear, it may appear
that the Lord has turned against us. He's turned his hand against
me all the day. where if you and I find ourselves
under this hand of God, what a blessing to know that God's
dealing with us in love to our souls. Not the way that we expected,
not the way that we anticipated, but nonetheless, God's way, because
it causes us to cry to Him. It won't be a long, clever prayer,
but it will be a true prayer. A true prayer is often very broken
and short, but nonetheless it enters in for the merits of the
Saviour. And He tells us, my flesh and
my skin as He made old, He has broken my bones, He has built
it against me and encompassed me with gall and travail. It
set me in dark places, as though to be dead of old. It hedged
me about, that I cannot get out. Yes, you won't find, you can
naturally get rid of it. You're hedged about, it's made
my chain heavy. You know, if somebody is a prisoner,
and they have a chain, and if it's a heavy chain, They can't
make very much progress. They can't escape really. The
chain is heavy upon them. And that's the picture we have
here. He has made my chain heavy and he says, Also, when I cry
and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. I wonder if you know
what that is. When you try to pray and it seems
as though you're praying to a brick wall. Your prayer seems to have no
entry. It just as it were comes back
at you. Seems to mock you. Well, here perhaps you find a
brother who understands it. He cries and shouts, he shouts
out my prayer. He has enclosed my ways with
hewn stone. He has made my paths crooked. We expected a nice, simple, straight
way to walk, and here we find the way is crooked. Yes, there
are many bends in it, and there are stumbling blocks in it, and
we need help continually to discern the right way. He was unto me
as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. He turned aside my ways and pulled
me in pieces. He has made me desolate." Well,
you know, we can go on in this third chapter in the Lamentations. I won't go on with it, but it
goes on until the 21st verse. If you are perhaps discouraged
in your spiritual life tonight, well you go home and read the
third chapter of Lamentations, because it isn't all darkness. Yes, it isn't all temptation.
There is a time of deliverance. What does Paul say here? He says,
he will not suffer you. to be tempted above that ye are
able." And Jeremiah was not tempted above what he was able to withstand. He gives us a picture, and it's
a very desolate picture, and it's a very dark picture. And
no doubt, he was a man of light passions as you and I are, and
therefore couldn't claim to be any righteousness in himself,
and he knew it was a just condemnation. And then he comes down and he
says, my soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled
in me. It's a great blessing when God
humbles us, humbled under the mighty hand of God. When God humbles us, it's very
different to what man does. Because it has a good and a gracious
effect. And that's what it had in Jeremiah's
life. He says, this I recall to mind,
therefore have I hope. Lovely word, isn't it? Hope.
Hope. And we do hope, don't we? In
the depth of despair almost. We hope. Yes, we can't and we're told
not to cast away our little hope. We hang on to it. You hang on
to it. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. Surely we deserve to be consumed. I'm sure If we understand anything
of the holiness and righteousness of God, we look at ourselves
and see how unholy and unrighteous we are, we deserve to be consumed. And therefore we are thankful.
To read a word like this, it is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. This is
really where I wanted to come to these words. They are new
every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. God
is faithful. Here we have these words here
in this chapter. But God is faithful. And that's
a wonderful truth, my friends. And we can come and we can remind
our gracious God of this. Oh Lord, our faithful God. And
I do come and I I plead the promises which are in the word of God.
I believe they are there. I believe they are for the poor
and afflicted. I believe they are there for
those who come into these times of temptation. Oh, succumb to
this God who is faithful, but God is faithful. And so we have
this statement here of Jeremiah. God is faithful. Now, we have
examples of times of great temptation. We think of the days of Daniel,
Daniel's day. There were times of extreme temptation. On that occasion, of those three
men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And well, they were in a time
of great temptation. They were told to bow down and
worship the idol, the golden image. My friends, don't think
that's trivial, because the devil will come and try to make you
and me bow down too. a golden image, wherever that
may be, in your life and my life, there may be a golden image,
which we are to bow down to. Well the effect was, that when
they were told to bow down, they did not bow down, and they came
before the king, and they said, to the King, O Nebuchadnezzar,
we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be
so, our God whom we serve, this faithful God, is able to deliver
us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of
thine hand, O King." We see faith here, don't we? Now, I believe
in a similar way today, when we find ourselves with these
temptations, to look out of ourselves and to look to the Lord with
that faith, that God-given faith, and to believe that he will deliver
us. He'll deliver us when the trial
of our faith has occurred. And so, here they were able to
say, but be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve
thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
And of course, this annoyed Nebuchadnezzar. Oh, he was angry, and he commanded
that the furnace should be heated seven times hotter than the three
men cast in, and expected them to be burnt immediately. They
were bound, they fell down in the fiery furnace, And what happened
then? Well, Nebuchadnezzar, he looked,
he couldn't understand, he was astonished. He rose up in haste
and spake and said unto his counsellors, did not we cast three men bound
in the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto him,
true, O king, he said, lo, I see four men loose and walking in
the midst of the fire, and they have no heart. And the form of
the fourth is like the Son of God. Now what does that show
to us? It shows to us that in the time
of great temptation, the Lord doesn't forsake his people. The
Lord doesn't forsake us. Here it was, the Lord made a
way to escape. It was an impossible situation
that men should be cast into an exceedingly hot fiery furnace,
and the fire should not affect them at all. So my friends, we can believe
in the same almighty God today, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able, but will with a temptation also
make a way to escape. Now, what was the way of escape
there? Jesus with them. What is the
way of escape for us today? Jesus with us. Jesus in the midst. The Apostle tells us so beautifully,
I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. My friends,
sometimes in the midst of temptation, to realise that in a time of
temptation, we're not alone. The Lord Jesus is with us, and indeed, he's with us in a
special way, because he was tempted. He was tempted. And when the
Spirit of God turns that temptation to direct us to what the Lord
endured. All the temptations that perhaps
the devil has tried to bring upon us, to turn us away, in
actual fact it's brought us closer to the Lord. And it's brought
us into that time of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we find then, that in
this time of temptation, There's a way to escape. And how is that? And where is it? It's through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's as we come to Calvary. That's the place of escape. That's
the place of blessing. That's the place of comfort.
To come in and view the Saviour. You see, my friends, The devil
can't stand at the cross. Because that's where he was defeated.
That's where he was conquered. That's where the Lord Jesus conquered
sin, death, hell and the grave. Oh, what a blessing it is then.
If the Spirit of God leads us in this way, There is no temptation taken
you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful. Yes, it will not suffer you to
be tempted above that ye are able. You may think you're going
to, you can't bear anything more anything more. I remember Frank
Gosling speaking once and saying in his life he was in a great
strait and he said Lord I can't bear anything more or I shall
fall and he had to bear something more and he did fall And he said,
I fell into the arms of Jesus. And he said, underneath were
the everlasting arms. The Lord knows what he will do. And it brings us to the end of
ourselves, so that we look to the Saviour and then we know
what a blessing and comfort it is. to have union with Christ. But will the temptation also
make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it? Because we will be able to bear
it. The Lord Jesus was able to bear that which his Father saw
fit to place upon him. He asked if it might be possible
He might not have to, but he was willing to suffer and do
the will of his father. And we should remember that in
our life here on this earth, it's just a passing place really,
just a temple abode, no abiding city. The earlier verses in that chapter
by Peter, we didn't read, but it speaks like this. He said,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth
not away reserved in heaven for you. That's what God's people
are being prepared for. That inheritance which is incorruptible
and undefiled. What a favour it will be to find
ourselves there in glory with our Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ. That One who the Bride of Christ
was able to describe so beautifully. This is my Beloved and this is
my Friend. O ye Daughters of Jerusalem.
In the Song of Solomon, that fifth chapter, it's a beautiful
description. of her beloved. She was asked,
what is your beloved more than another beloved? And she was
able to give a good account. And that would be a good thing
if God, in his mercy, causes us to walk this path of temptation
so that we view, by faith, our beloved. Who is this that cometh
up out of the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? It would be a
blessing if you and I come up out of the wilderness, leaning
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We're not leaning on ourselves.
No, but bless God, He's caused us to give up all hope in ourselves.
His temptations have come across us, into our lives. But God has
not suffered us to be tempted above that we are able, but has,
with a temptation, also made a way to escape that we may be
able to bear it. And what a blessing that will
be. Now, what did the Apostle Paul have to face and endure? You remember, later on in the
second epistle to the Corinthians, he spoke about that a thorn in
the flesh. He tells us, and lest I should
be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations,
there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of
Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For
this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart
from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee. What a blessing to know that,
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is sufficient for us. He says, for my strength is made
perfect in weakness. We read in another place, He
weakened our strength in the way. We may have felt ourselves
strong, we may have felt ourselves very able, We may have thought
we were wonderfully strong in the word of God and we knew all
the answers and this and the other. Then God comes and he
weakens our strength in a way. And what do we prove then? My
strength is made perfect in weakness. And what does the apostle then
say? Most gladly, therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities,
and these infirmities No doubt a part of this temptations, my
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. It's a wonderful blessing to
know something of the power of Christ resting upon us. Because we know the power of
Christ. We know what he does for us. We know what he does
day by day in presenting our prayers. And we know what he
has done. through his great and glorious
death upon Calvary's cross. We see now the power of God,
resurrection, rising from the dead, the conqueror, the power
of God. My friend, we see the weakness
of God and we see the power of God. And the Lord directs us
in these paths so that we learn of Him. We are turned to Him. We desire to worship and honour
and glorify Him because He's done great things for us. But will with a temptation also
make a way to escape that ye may be able also to bear it. Paul was given grace to bear
it. My friends, we will have grace
to bear, and the Lord see fit to lay it upon us. But my friends,
it will only be for a short time. Then we shall be delivered from
it, and then we shall go home to glory. Those who have been
prepared for that place, are prepared people for a prepared
place, and we will bless God for His goodness and His mercy
toward us, and not leaving us, nor forsaking us, but we understand
this path, the path of the righteous. There is no temptation taken
you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful. Oh, don't forget that. God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that
you are able, but will, with a temptation, also make a way
to escape, that you may be able to bear it. Amen.