Temptation

1 Corinthians 10:13  No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

            The apostle has just been warning against too much self confidence; he now speaks against the opposite faults, too much downheartedness and despondency.

1.      There is a precise correspondence between strength and trial

a.       The temptation is proportioned to the power of resistance.

b.      Do not think that there is something hard, heavy, and worse than all the past to come: the burden is made for the back.

2.      The very same divine act makes both the trial and the way to get out of it.

            God tempts us only in the way of testing us, and he points a way of escape. He never brought into a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare, and we can get out if we please; with the Egyptians on this side, and the sea on that, God will clear the waters of the deep to make a way.

3.      This must be so unless make himself a liar.

            I wish to put it strongly. If it were not so, men would have a right to turn upon God and to say, “Thou hast deceived me.”

            God does not force his help upon us; but nothing will come to us that we shall not be able to baffle and beat as long as we have his strength for ours.