“A Way out of Temptation”
1 Corinthians 10:12-13

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Fourth Sunday in Lent—March 14, 2021

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is today’s Epistle Reading, in which St. Paul first warns: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” But, then he also gives a wonderful assurance: “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

Two words in this text have an interesting original meaning in Greek that helps us to understand and apply these verses. The first word is “temptation.” The Greeks where the first real scientists, and in Greek the word for “temptation” was originally the word for “experiment.”

And isn’t it very appropriate that the word for “temptation” is also the word for “experiment”? Because, when we succumb to temptation, that’s often exactly what we’re doing: experimenting. Like Adam and Eve experimenting with the forbidden fruit—just a taste, to see what it’s like—we too often experiment with what God has forbidden.

And when we do, we make the very mistake that St. Paul warns us against: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!”  We think it’s okay to just nibble a bit on the forbidden fruit, that we can safely flirt with temptation and “experiment” with sin.

And that’s exactly what Satan wants you to think.  A good salesman will tell you that if you can get the customer to say “Yes” three times to just about anything, you’ll probably make the sale.  So, they begin with something like, “Are you looking for a car that’s reliable?”  Well, who would say no to that?  You went in just to look, to experiment a bit.  But, after the expert salesman gets done with you, before you know it you’re driving off the lot in a new car!

Satan is an expert at the selling you on the supposed advantages and benefits of sin.  And he is a tireless and aggressive salesman, as St. Peter says: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

In addition, Satan also has two other “sin salesman” working with him.  The comedian Flip Wilson had routine that many others have copied.  If you’re my age you remember him on TV with a little demon on one shoulder and a little angel on the other, one tempting him to go astray, the other trying to keep him on the right path.  And in the end he’d point to the little demon and say his famous line: “The devil made me do it!”

But, really, you don’t have just one, but three demonic forces working together to lead you into temptation.  An unholy trinity of the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh.  St. Paul puts it this way in Galatians: “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are at war with each other, so that you do not do what you want.”  As St. James says: “Your desires battle within you.”

There is a war, a spiritual battle, going on in your heart and life.  And not just you, but every Christian, as St. Paul says in our text: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man . . . So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!”

Many of the earliest researchers into nuclear energy died as a result of their experiments.  The materials they were handling looked like ordinary rocks and minerals.  No one realized their hidden, destructive, radioactive power.  That’s what sin is like.  Satan makes it appear harmless, benign, even beneficial.  As Genesis says: “When the woman saw that the fruit was good for food, and a delight to the eyes, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.”  In Greek the word “temptation” literally means “to experiment,” and like an experiment gone horribly wrong, sin has a deadly, destructive power.

The other word in our text with an interesting original meaning in Greek is the word translated “way out”: “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

One important thing that we included when we completely remodeled our church a few years ago was new Exit signs, so that in case of emergency people can find their way out.  If you go to London, in the subway system, which they call the Tube, instead of “Exit” signs, everywhere you will see signs with arrows that actually say “Way Out.”  That is literally the meaning of this word in Greek.  It is related to our word “Exit.”  St. Paul is literally saying that God will provide you with an “exit,” a “way out” from sin.

Navigating the 16 lane freeways on vacation in California some years ago, I learned the hard way to get over into the correct lane long before my exit came.  If you waited until it was time to exit you missed it.  In the same way, the “exits” from sin which God provides often come long before the decisive moment, when you are tempted and fall.  We make the mistake of dabbling with danger, experimenting with temptation, thinking that we can limit it, handle it, cut it off when we want, stop before it goes too far.  And so we pass by exit after exit that God provides along the way, and then when the decisive moment comes, we are in the wrong lane.

“When you are tempted, God will also provide a way out.”  Get in the right lane before the decisive moment comes.  And the right lane to be in is right here.  You could think of our pews as exit lanes off the path of sin.  For, just as exits on the interstate are numbered, right here is where God provides you with exit #1 off the path to sin, in his Word and Sacraments, and worship, and prayer, and fellowship with other Christians.

The first deadly deception Satan tries to convince us of is that sin isn’t really all that bad, it won’t hurt to dabble and experiment with it a little.  Once we have fallen into that trap, and find ourselves ensnared and enmeshed in sin, the second deception Satan tries to convince us of is the totally opposite: that our fall is so great, our sin is so grevious, that we are lost forever and cannot be forgiven.

But, St. Paul tells us the Good News in 2nd Timothy: “If we are faithless, he remains faithful.”  The Good News is, God provides a “way out” from sin, not only while you are being tempted and before you fall, but he also provides a wonderful “way out” even after you fall into sin.  St. John puts it this way: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.  But, if anybody does sin, we have an Advocate, who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

The Good News is, if anybody does sin, Jesus is your “way out,” your exit from hell and entrance to heaven.  For, his perfect life and holy death is the atoning sacrifice which pays for all your sins.  As Jesus himself says so beautifully in today’s Gospel Reading: “The Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned.”

There’s a part of our Liturgy, used at times before Holy Communion, which puts it this way: “He overcame death and the grave and opened to us the way of everlasting life.”  “God is faithful; he will also provide a way out.”  Jesus is your “way out,” from sin and death, to salvation and eternal life.