Text: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Radio preacher and best-selling author Chuck Swindoll once spoke to a group of pastors. He told about a man who was mountain climbing in the Sierra Mountains of California. In one particularly difficult section of his climb, he pulled himself on to a ledge only to find a six foot timber rattlesnake looking at him with his mouth open and tail rattling. The man froze. The rattler struck. The man moved so that the snake's fangs barely missed grazing his neck. Still, the snake's fangs got caught in the man's pullover sweater. He could feel beside his neck the snake trying to get loose, so the man reached back to grab the rattler's head.
Unfortunately, this caused him to lose his balance and fall back, rolling down an incline with the six foot rattler still attached to his sweater. His progress came to a halt on a ledge against a little bush. Finding himself leaning over a precipice with a large rattlesnake wrapped around his head, he got a death grip on the snake's head and began to squeeze. He said later he could feel the hot venom dripping down his neck from the snake's fangs that were still caught in his pullover. He squeezed for a long time until he was sure the snake wasn't moving anymore. Keeping his death grip on the snake's head, he began to work the fangs out of his pullover. He unwound the snake from his head and kept squeezing. He squeezed so hard that his hands seized up and he was forced to walk down the mountain with the snake still in his grip. When he got back to camp, his buddies had to pry his fingers off the snake.
After telling this story Swindoll looked around at this group of pastors and said, "There are some of you pastors right here who are feeling the hot venom on your neck right now. You have played with sin, and it is about to take you down." (1. Tommy Nelson, The 12 Essentials of Godly Success (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005), p. 76.)
That's powerful storytelling. You might think a group of pastors would not need to be reminded of the power of sin. You would be wrong. To be a human being is to be tempted.
In today's lesson from I Corinthians, St. Paul is speaking to people who are, for the most part, recent converts to Christ. They have come out of a decadent culture, much like our own. He is reminding them of how easy it is to slip back into the old ways. He takes them back to the story of the Exodus from Egypt. While Moses was on the mountain the people slipped back into the idolatry and sexual immorality that had been part of their life in Egypt. Their backsliding, according to Exodus 32, offended God and their punishment was severe. Paul writes, "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry. We should not commit sexual immorality," Paul continues, "as some of them did and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us . . . ."
Strong stuff just like Swindoll's story about the snake. Still, many of us need to heed the warning.
To be human is to be tempted to sin. Even Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, though without sinning. If the only perfect man who ever lived could be tempted, none of us is exempt.
At the zoo in Forth Worth, Texas is a building where tropical birds are kept. The hallway where the people walk is dark; the birds are in lighted cases of glass. All along each side of the building is a long case that looks like a tropical rain forest. It has a miniature waterfall, a pool, trees, and all sorts of plants. Among the trees and rocky ledges the small, brightly colored birds fly. As people watch this, they eventually become aware that there is no glass between them and the birds. They could reach in and touch the birds if they chose. Why don't the birds fly out? A sign above the cage explains that the birds are afraid of darkness, and when it gets dark, they go to sleep. They love the light and will not deliberately fly from the light into the darkness.
That's a major difference between tropical birds and humans. Given the right circumstances we will wander into the darkness. (http://www.stmarkshudson.org/sermons/2008/03/03/ephesians-5-8-14/.)
No one is immune to temptation. Paul writes, "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to [humanity] . . ." Paul was writing to church people who had gotten the idea that because of their commitment to Christ, they were somehow immune to the temptations that vex the rest of humanity.
A Facebook friend posted a photo of an exotic monkey in a small cage. Here is what he wrote about the photo. "Some 20+ years ago, while visiting St. Thomas (one of the US Virgin Islands), a local offered to give my group a private tour of some of the island's hidden treasures. One of the places he took us was a building courtyard filled with makeshift cages housing large primates, cats and reptiles. At the time, I thought it was really cool to see such wild animals up close. It wasn't until I was much older (and hopefully a little wiser) that I realized that he had taken us to a facility that was part of an illegal, black-market ring trafficking exotic animals." That is the way temptation works on us. It seems cool at the time but it entraps us as the traffickers trapped that monkey. This is true for both Christians and non-Christians.
We are all tempted. We are all tested. No one is exempt. Yet, Paul tells us, "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." -1 Cor 10:13
Thomas Keating tells a story about how such monkeys are trapped. He says a monkey in the forest came across some sweet meat inside a trap. The trap was set so that the monkey could get his hand inside the trap and grab the meat but he could not withdraw his hand from the trap as long as he held on to the meat. While holding the meat with his hand inside the trap the monkey became aware of a several hunters coming toward him. The monkey could let go of the sweet meat and withdraw his hand from the trap and escape the hunters but he could not bring himself to let go of the sweet meat that so tempted him. Soon the monkey was easily trapped and became sweet meat for the hunters as was the custom in their culture. So it is with us and sin. When we can't let go of the sin that entraps us we may soon find that we have lost it all. No wonder Jesus taught us when we pray to say, "Lead us not into temptation." That ought to be part of every believer's prayer.
The secret to resisting temptation is to stay connected to God and to stay connected to other believers. Besides making us want to run from God, sin also makes us want to isolate ourselves from other believers. In his book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: "Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more disastrous is this isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person."
Leadership expert John Maxwell put it this way, "Sin pushes the person out of the community of believers, and being away from other Christians prevents us from receiving the benefit of accountability. It's a vicious cycle. As the saying goes, prayer prevents us from sin, and sin prevents us from prayer. If you're harboring sin in your life, confess it now and receive God's forgiveness. Clear away what's preventing you from connecting with God." (Partners In Prayer, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996, pp. 53-54.)
Kent Crockett, in The 911 Handbook, puts it like this: "The alcoholic never dreamed he would end up in the gutter when he took his first drink. But he could remember saying, 'One drink never hurt anyone.'
"The man who cheated on his wife never dreamed he would lose his wife and children because of yielding for one fleeting moment. But he could remember thinking, 'Who will ever know?'
"The fish who took the bait never dreamed a hook was inside and he would end up in a frying pan. But he couldn't see the man standing on the shore with a fishing pole at the other end of the line." (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997, pp. 32-33.)
Some of you will think that, in the words of the old joke, "I've quit preaching and gone to meddling." But families are being torn apart, lives are being ruined and even being lost by the oldest vices known to humanity. And it doesn't have to be. Flee from temptation. Stay connected to God and your church family. Much is at stake, perhaps even your very soul.
There is a way out of sin. Confess it. Repent. Take another path. This is possible no matter what sin you my face. As Paul puts it in our text today: "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." (1 Cor 10:13) As the old children's song says, "I am weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so."
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Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon from 1 Cor 10:1-13 on March 7, 2010 at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas.
