SERIES: Christ Is the Answer When the Church Is in Crisis
The Trial of Your Faith
SCRIPTURE: 1 Cor. 10:13
Introduction: For our special Fifth Sunday Worship experience I want to speak to you briefly on the subject of temptations and trials. They have so much in common that the Greek language uses the exact same word to describe both. One has to determine which is being referred to from the context. Last Lord’s Day we examined one of the great verses of Scripture on temptation in 1 Cor. 10:13: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And 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.”
But what if we were to retranslate it, using “trial” instead of “temptation”? [i] “No trial has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tried beyond what you can bear. But when you are tried, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” In English we use the terms “temptation” and “trial” to handle different concepts. Temptations are generally solicitations to do evil. Trials are more often morally neutral. Temptations are something we participate in. Trials just happen to us. Temptations are guilt-producing. Trials are more likely to be anxiety-producing or anger-producing. But I believe there are more similarities between temptations and trials than there are differences; in fact, that’s why the Greek language employs one word for both.
They are alike in that both often come upon us suddenly. Temptations “seize us,” Paul says in 1 Cor. 10:13. They arrive unannounced, often at our most vulnerable times. But so do trials. Death rarely makes an appointment; it just comes. Cancer is something that happens to other people, so that when we hear those dreaded words from our doctor, we are almost never fully prepared. The phone call in the night that announces there’s been an auto accident, the pink slip from the employer, the awful words from a spouse, “I don’t love you anymore,” all seize us unawares, and that is one of the factors that makes trials so difficult to handle.
Trials and temptations are also alike in that neither is superhuman. The phrase “common to man” in 1 Cor. 10:13 is one word in the original, anthropinos, from which we get our English word anthropology, the study of man, and it means literally, “human in nature.” Others have experienced every temptation we experience and many to a greater degree. Some have yielded, but others have found victory. We are not unique in respect to either the kind or the intensity of the temptations we have experienced. [ii]
But so also with our trials. As terrible as they may seem at times, our trials are not unique; in fact, you can always find someone who has experienced greater trials than you have. I did the funeral of a lady several weeks ago–a woman I did not know, but I knew her son. As we were preparing the funeral together, he told me that his mother had lost her mother at age 12, having already lost one sibling. Her other two siblings died as teenagers. Her father then moved the family away from her roots and married the proverbial ugly stepmother. Not surprisingly, this woman married young, and then tragically she was abandoned by her husband when she had two small children. That’s more trial than any one person should have to endure, by human reckoning.
However, even emotional pain as intense as this woman experienced does not have to destroy a person. Actually, the beautiful thing about this story is that she came to know Christ through all this and spent the last thirty years of her life serving Him faithfully and joyfully. God has, in fact, built some circuit breakers into our lives so that pain doesn’t have to destroy us. A circuit breaker trips whenever the possibility of electrical overload reaches the danger point. God has, for example, created us so that when physical pain gets too intense, we lose consciousness. Furthermore, God has created us so that even if we don’t lose consciousness, we often forget the intensity of our suffering–otherwise no woman would have a second child.
Of course, men can experience high levels of pain, too. Last summer I had a bad disc in my back. While out of town on the 6th of August it ruptured badly and the next 24 hours were unbelievable, as I tried to get back to St. Louis for surgery. We had to stop at a hospital emergency room on the way so I could get pain shots. My wife, like many women, has a tendency to believe men are wimps when it comes to pain, but my surgeon, Dr. John Kretek, put her in her place. He said he had a number of women patients who had this kind of ruptured disc and who had also experienced natural child birth, and they all said the disc pain was worse. So there!
My point is that though I have experienced excruciating pain, the memory of it is not an obsession, because God allows the memory of it to recede. This is another built-in protective device He has given us to keep us from crashing and burning.
Now I wouldn’t for a moment want to compare my temporary back pain with the kind of physical or emotional pain that some people have to endure—pain that goes on and on, month after month, year after year. Surgery relieved mine, but some people get no relief. They can’t forget because the pain is never gone. But even that kind of suffering fits under the promise given in 1 Cor. 10:13, namely that “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted (or tried) beyond what you can bear.” I have seen countless believers who have demonstrated the validity of that promise through their incredible endurance in the face of trial. It’s a promise of God which is worthy of our faith.
Temptations and trials are alike in another way, in that they can either drive us to greater dependence upon God or cause us to become bitter toward Him. The person who struggles with a chronic temptation sometimes just gives up. After begging God for the umpteenth time to take away the fatal allure of alcohol or illicit sex or drugs or gambling, he or she may decide to blame God and conclude that He doesn’t care. That’s sad to see, because in the process they are abandoning all hope of healing.
The same is true of trials. There was an article about Ted Turner in the media last week that indicated his contempt for Christianity is rooted in the death of his sister. He prayed that God would heal her but she died anyway, and he decided that he couldn’t believe in a God who didn’t answer prayer. But there are others who have seen pain as God’s megaphone to get their attention. Some in this church have come to faith in Christ directly because of a family tragedy or because a trial brought them to the end of their rope.
Temptation and trial are also alike in that God puts limits on both as to how far they can go. We saw last week that God doesn’t allow the juice of temptation to be turned up beyond what we can bear. But trials are limited as well. Those of you who have been here a long time know that one of my favorite passages of Scripture is from the 38th chapter of Job. Job was probably inundated with heavier trials than anyone in this room, though it’s hard to weigh such things. Following over 30 chapters of philosophical musings from Job and his four so-called friends as to why these trials had come upon him, God finally interrupts and says,
Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? {3} Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. {4} “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. {5} Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? {6} On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—{7} while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? {8} “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, {9} when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, {10} when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, {11} when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? (Job 38:2-11)
God uses irony and even sarcasm here to communicate that we’re not up to the task of challenging Him as to why He allows this or that in the universe He created. He, as the sovereign Lord of the universe, decides what to allow, and, as chaotic as things may appear to us at time, they are never out of His control. Even the waves on the primeval ocean are told, “This far you may come and no farther.” No one suffered more than Job, but the boundaries of his trials were clearly spelled out and controlled by God. And friends, that goes for ours, too.
Temptation and trial are alike in one final way: God has provided a way out. Verse 13 says in the NIV, “But when you are tempted, he will provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” I believe that is also true of trials, but it’s a little harder to see. If a loved one who has terminal cancer dies, the way out for that person is death itself. That doesn’t seem like a very attractive escape, but to the believer who accepts that the resurrected Christ has paved the way for our resurrection, it is indeed attractive. It’s the ultimate way out.
But what about for those who are left behind? There’s no way to reverse the effects of that loss. You can’t escape the consequences. So, the way out for the one left behind has to mean moving on–to a deeper experience with God, new relationships, and meaningful ministry to others who grieve.
Two of our new Elders, elected last February, were in their twenties when their wives died, leaving them each with a small child. I can’t imagine the pain and suffering that produced. But God provided wonderful new companions to them and mothers to their children. The way out was not a replacement, for no one can replace someone we have loved and lost, but rather it was another person to love and partner with. They became members of the Fellowship of the Twice Blessed.
Of course, not everyone who loses a spouse finds someone else to love as a life partner. But sometimes God fills the void with other kinds of relationships, with a deeper walk with Himself, or with ministry opportunities that might never have been enjoyed otherwise.
Once in a while death may actually seem desirable as a way out of suffering, but death does not come. My grandmother lived the last 13 years of her life in a hospital before dying at age 99. By that time she had lost both legs to diabetes and she was ready to go long before death came, but her mind was still sharp and God used her to touch many lives. Remember His promise to Paul when the Apostle requested 3 times that his thorn in the flesh be removed? “My grace is sufficient for you.” It was for my grandmother, and it can be for you.
In closing, may I offer just a few practical suggestions when facing either trial or temptation?
1. Feed on the Scriptures. This book, friends, is not human. It’s God’s book, and you will gain more in comfort and perspective from this Book than from every human book combined. But the goal of that feeding should not just be knowledge; rather it must be an intimate relationship with the Author, God Himself. We feed on His Word in order to grow in our love and dependence upon Him.
2. Be honest with God. One of the beautiful but sometimes shocking things about the Psalms is David’s honesty with God. He tells God how he’s feeling and what he’s thinking. If he’s angry, he says so. If he’s feeling revengeful, he admits it. If he wants to dash his enemy’s children on the rocks, he’s honest about it. And because he talks it out with God and listens to God’s responses, also recorded, he doesn’t have to act out what he’s feeling.
3. Seek perspective, but don’t become obsessed with finding ultimate answers. Perspective is a balanced view. When our lives get out of balance, we are at risk to ourselves and to others. Look for truth, but if you demand to know “why?” at every point, you can drive yourself crazy. Remember that we live on the bottom side of the rug, and it won’t be till we get to heaven that we’ll see the beauty of the pattern from the top side.
4. Don’t waste time in bitterness. Anger is understandable. Bitterness is anger gone to seed; it is self-defeating. Move on. Many people ruin their lives by getting stuck on something that happened to them. They just never get beyond it. It eats their lunch and leaves them with the garbage.
5. Avail yourself of the gift of help from the Body of Christ. Don’t try to bear your burdens alone. There are no healthy Lone Ranger Christians. The trials of life are designed to teach us interdependence–to love and care for each other in the Body of Christ. And the time to get into relationship is now, before you face a major trial.
I see very different responses to temptation and trial in believer’s lives, and I’ll tell you something I have observed a hundred times if I’ve observed it once. One of the key determining factors as to how someone handles trials is “friends.” If they are part of a Small Church or a Small Group, or if they have deep friendships with fellow believers, their chances of surviving and triumphing over either temptations or trials rises exponentially.
The risk when talking about pain and suffering and trials is always that we may trivialize what someone is experiencing and give simple pat answers to very complex issues. I don’t want to do that this morning. But I do want you to know that there are many sitting near you today who have witnessed the faithfulness and sufficiency of Christ in the face of temptation and trial. The testimonies you heard for baptism this morning could be repeated a hundred times by others in this room
Someone at the Men’s Fraternity on Wednesday morning told me, “Until Jesus is all you have, you may never know that Jesus is all you need.” Think about that as we sing, “I Need Thee Every Hour.”
DATE: April 29, 2001
Tags:
Trials
Temptation
Faith
Bitterness
[i] While the context of 1 Cor. 10:13 makes it pretty clear that temptation is the passage’s focus, I believe the Scriptures taken as a whole support the other translation as well. After all, the exact same word is used in James 1:2 where we read, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,” and later in verse 12, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”
[ii] No matter how difficult a trial may seem, it is, nevertheless, human in nature. One may wish to argue that point by noting the monumental evil that individuals like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or Idi Amin have perpetrated upon millions of people. Weren’t they motivated by Satan and perhaps even demon-possessed, and doesn’t that make those trials superhuman? Either a temptation or a trial may have a Satanic source, that is not the same as saying it is supernatural in intensity. God has put boundaries on what Satan can do, and he is not allowed to inflict God’s people with supernatural trials or temptations.