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 it, right beside his neck the snake was struggling 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 fellows 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.”
That’s powerful storytelling. You might think a group of pastors would not need to be reminded of the power of sin. Well, 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 in this 21st century. People have returned to 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.
Sexual immorality, greed, envy they are all part of the human experience.
There is a cartoon that has two characters saying: “How come opportunity knocks only once, but temptation beats down the door every day?” It’s true.
A man asked his wife to help him shed some unwanted pounds. And so she stopped serving him TV snacks with fat and carbohydrates in them. Instead, she substituted celery.
While he was unenthusiastically munching on a celery stalk one night, a commercial caught his attention. As he watched longingly, a woman spread gooey chocolate frosting over a freshly baked cake. When it was over, the man turned sadly to his wife. “Did you ever notice,” he asked, “that they never advertise celery on television?”
Temptation is everywhere when you are weak. And don’t feel virtuous just because you are able to refrain from the more popular vices.
Even doing nothing,
not supporting the finances of your church,
not stepping forward and filling a vacant position
not answering God’s call on our life---
– all of these things can be sinful, that’s why there is a category of vices called sloth.
You may remember that in Homer’s epic The Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew arrived at the island of the lotus‑eaters. The inhabitants of this island ate the seeds of the lotus plant. Eating these seeds drained the crew of all desire to do anything but lie around. Some of them ate the seeds and promptly forgot about their homes and families.
They had fought the seas, the monsters and the elements they were never more alive than then. Now they didn’t want to exert themselves. Their only desire was to lie around, looking forward to their next meal of lotus seeds. Thus, the first generation of slackers, or couch potatoes, was born.
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.
I think that all of us remember television evangelist Jim Bakker. The judge who conducted Bakker’s bankruptcy trial had this to say about him, “That fellow was very religious. He could have accomplished no end of good. But he did not recognize the temptation of greed. He thought his success was God’s blessing. It was, in reality, the devil’s temptation.”
Jim Bakker is not the only believer to whom that has happened. I could stand here this morning and run off a list of names – many of which you would recognize. Paul is warning the members of the church at Corinth how easy it is to fall into temptation. Sometimes we get the idea that we beyond such temptation.
As one wag put it, “Remember, there are Seven Deadly Sins . . . one for each day, so . . . have a nice week!” So we sin is it a big deal? After all, God always forgives.
Cynthia Wall says that, while attending a convention, she had breakfast in a cafe next to two gray-haired men from the same symposium. She overheard one of these gentlemen remark, “You know, this is the first time in 40 years we’ve gone to one of these conventions without our wives.”
Cynthia says this man’s pal leaned back, contemplating what such freedom might portend. “I know,” he said, laying his menu aside. “Let’s have biscuits and gravy!”
Well, maybe biscuits and gravy are not a major temptation, but temptations are out there, and some of them are deadly. These temptations may destroy your health, they may destroy your marriage, they may destroy your standing in the community, they may eventually destroy your soul.
There is simply no scenario by which sin improves our lives. It may give us a high for a while, but ultimately we grieve the day we first gave into temptation.
Paul uses graphic examples from the Old Testament to show that temptation can be a killer if you give into it. But he also adds this word of grace: “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.”
That is good news, isn’t it? We do not have to give into temptation. I know what some of you are thinking too bad. Many people operate under the assumption that the average person cannot resist temptation, it’s too strong. Well, it is strong. If you are in a tempting situation, you need to flee from it.
Archie “Grandpappy” Campbell played the doctor on television’s “Hee-Haw.” A patient told Doc Campbell his arm was broken in two places. The doctor said, “Well, stop going to those two places.” It’s an old joke, but it’s good advice. Since I was diagnoses with diabetes 3 months, my sugar has dropped to ‘really’ good levels, my good cholesterol is up and my bad cholesterol is way down. And about the only thing I can attribute it to is watching what I eat a little more and cutting out those bedtime snacks. If you are in a place where you are being tempted, get out of there! End that relationship. Quit stopping off at that bar. Cut out those late night snacks. You know what is called for – just do it.
Temptation is strong, but God is stronger. Do your part to remove yourself from temptation and God will help you overcome it.
“God is faithful,” writes Paul. “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.”
The secret to resisting temptation is to stay connected to God and to stay connected to other believers. Jesus taught us when we pray to say, “Lead us not into temptation.” That ought to be part of every believer’s prayer.
The best way we make ourselves more immune to temptation is to stay in the fellowship of 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 at His table this morning. Clear away what’s preventing you from connecting with God.”
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.”
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.
