No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
The apostle Paul warned the Corinthians about the danger of yielding to temptation. The desert was littered with the bodies of Israelites who ignored God’s warnings (1 Corinthians 10:5).
On their trek to the Promised Land, the Hebrews engaged in immorality, idolatry, and grumbling; and many were judged. These examples from Israel’s past “were written for our admonition”—as warnings about the dangers of temptation (1 Corinthians 10:11). “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall,” Paul warned (verse 12). But with that warning came a way of escape. Paul wrote that God will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear—that He always provides a “way of escape.” But we must take the way God provides.
First Corinthians 10:13 is not only a verse of comfort but also a verse of warning. Failure to resist temptation in the strength of Christ is to ignore God’s warning about the consequences of sin.
The best of saints may be tempted to the worst of sins.
