“Therefore…flee…”! – II
I Corinthians 10:12-14
(All Scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated)
Another man is running from a dark tunnel into the light! We cannot know the circumstances behind the illustration, but, again, the man is a picture of Paul the Apostle’s command to the members of the church at Corinth, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry…”!
These six words, of Paul’s command are part of our featured Scripture from I Corinthians 10: 12 through 14:
Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has over-taken 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. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
First, some background:
- Before Paul became a God-appointed apostle to the Gentiles (non Jews), he was Saul the Jewish Pharisee, the feared persecutor of believers in the resurrected Jesus Christ! (see Acts 8:1-4; 9:1-22).
✡ Why was he persecuting Christians?
He was totally convinced they were
breaking the first (and most impor-
tant) of the Ten Commandments given
by Jehovah God Himself to the Isra-
elites at Mount Sinai fourteen hun-
dred years before after delivering
them from slavery in Egypt!
I am the LORD your God, who
brought you out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house
of bondage. You shall have
no other gods before Me.
(Exodus 20:2, 3).
✡ Worshiping any thing or any one else
(such as that false prophet and blas-
phemous man Jesus) was blatant idol-
atry punishable by imprisonment and
death!
- But Paul makes a humbling confession in Romans 7:7: “What shall we say then? Is the [Old Testament Jewish] law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known cove-tousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’ ”
✡ Obviously, by his own admission, be-
fore his conversion, Saul of Tarsus
was engaging in the sin of covetous-
ness, breaking the tenth commandment,
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s
house; you shall not covet your neigh-
bor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor
his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his
donkey, nor anything that is your
neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17).
✞ God had to break Saul’s covetous-
ness, so, as Paul could later write
to the church at Philippi:
“I have learned in whatever
state I am, to be content:
I know how to be abased, and
I know how to abound. Every-
where and in all things I
have learned both to be full
and to be hungry, both to
abound and to suffer need. I
can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me.”
(Philippians 4:11-13).
- But Paul writes something quite amazing and telling in Colossians 3:5: “Therefore put to death your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and coveteousness, which is idolatry.”
✞ “...covetousness...is idolatry...”!
So Paul is confessing that he had
been guilty of engaging in the sin
of idolatry!
✞ This is the very sin, idolatry,
which Saul of Tarsus was doing his
best to stamp out, that which, in
his interpretation, believers in
the Lord Jesus Christ were engaged
in!
One more observation:
- The presentations of the Ten Commandments are usually displayed in a linear way, listed in order from the first to the tenth!
- Comparing what Paul wrote in Romans 7:7 and Colossians 3:5, tying the tenth commandment back to the first, perhaps the Ten Commandments should be presented in circular fashion!
But let’s get to the main point of this Gem, I Corinthians 10:12 through 14:
Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has over-taken 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. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
When I first began Scripture memorization years ago, I selected verses 12 and 13 of I Corinthians 10 to memorize. It seemed like these two verses summarized what the Apostle Paul wanted to convey:
- Don’t make the mistake of thinking you, by yourself, can easily handle any temptation to sin that comes your way!
- Any temptation you may experience has been around as long as human beings have walked the earth!
- But God, being faithful to His own…
✞ ...will not let any temptation test
one of His own “...beyond what [that
one is]...able [to endure]...
✞ “...but with the temptation will
also make the way of escape,...”
so that one being tempted will not
succumb to sin!
But years later I discovered I needed to add verse 14 to those two memory verses: “Therefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.” (I Corinthians 10:14)..
- This is the key to overcoming temptation, “Therefore…flee…”!
- Flee from what? “…flee from idolatry…”!
Just what is idolatry? It is putting anything before God, and what He is directing you and me to do!
- It can be flagrant idolatry, such as worshiping an idol, as did the Israelites at Mount Sinai, when they bowed down to a manu-factured golden calf while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments!
- It can be a more innocent mistake, as when in Revelation 22:8, the Apostle John, after experiencing all the visions recorded in this last book of the Bible, “…fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed [him] these things.”
✞ I suppose we could excuse John, who
had just seen and heard all the over-
powering events of the end of the
age!
✞ But the angel rebuked him (Revela-
tion 22:9). “See that you do not
do that...”!
➔ “For I am your fellow ser-
vant, and of your brethren
the prophets, and of those
who keep the words of this
book.”
➔ “Worship God...”!
- Only God is to be obeyed! Only God is to be glorified! Only God is to be honored! Only God is to be worshiped!
I believe Jesus Himself showed us how to defeat idolatry in Luke 22:42:
- He was about to go through the most horrendous torture and death anyone could ever experience!
✞ He was arrested, humiliated, man-
handled, beaten, spit upon, cursed,
and condemned!
✞ He was whipped by Roman flogging
to literally within an inch of His
life!
✞ He was forced to carry the cross-
beam of His cross, then forcefully
nailed to it, hoisted to a verti-
cal beam where His feet where then
nailed in place!
- But all that horrible treatment was not the worst of the suffering that Jesus endured!
✞ For we are told in...
➔ ... II Corinthians 5:21 that
“He...who knew no sin was
made sin for us....”
➔ ...I John 2:2 (Jubilee
Bible), “He is the recon-
ciliation for our sins, and
not for ours only, but also
for the sins of the whole
world.”
✞ He who never once sinned (see He-
brews 4:15; I Peter 2:22; I John
3:5), was loaded down with all the
sins of humankind...
➔ ...from the original sins
of Adam and Eve (see Gene-
sis 2:15-17; 3:6)...
➔ ...to all the sins commit-
ted by human beings ever
since...
➔ ...to all the sins that will
be committed throughout re-
maining human history!
✞ ...and it caused Jesus to cry out
to the Father, “My God, My God,
why have You forsaken Me?”
Facing all the horror of what was soon coming, the Son of God prayed in the garden to His Father (recorded in Luke 22:42), “Father, if it is Your will, remove this cup [of intense suffering] from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Combine this prayer of Jesus with what Paul wrote in I Corinthians 10:12 through 14:
Therefore let him who thinks he stands
take heed lest he fall. 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. Therefore, my beloved,
flee from idolatry.
- This is how to overcome succumbing to temptation and falling into sin!
✞ Luke 22:42 – “...nevertheless, not
My will, but Yours, be done.”
✞ I Corinthians 10:14 – “Therefore,
my beloved, flee from idolatry.”
Now go, “…and do likewise…”!
(Judges 7:17)
