I wanted to share with you some information about what Americans know about the Bible. A recent survey showed that Americans generally could not recite the Ten Commandments. The best was that a slight majority of people were able to name five of the Ten Commandments. Shall we take the test on the Ten Commandments?
I – You shall have no other gods but me.
II - You shall not make unto you any graven images.
III - You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
IV - You shall remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
V - Honor your mother and father.
VI - You shall not murder.
VII - You shall not commit adultery.
VIII - You shall not steal.
IX - You shall not bear false witness.
X - You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
The survey also reported that 12% of the people believed that Joan of Arc was Noah’ wife. Joan of Arc is a national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army into battle in the 1400’s.
The survey also found that 50% of Americans believed that Sodom and Gomorrah were married. Sodom and Gomorrah were, of course, cities destroyed by God for their wickedness.
Now the other interesting fact is that the Bible was still the best-selling book in American in 2023 with 88% of all Americans owning one or more copies of the Bible. The problem seems to be that we don’t open the book often enough and read it. In not understanding what the Bible says, we become susceptible to others telling us what it says and that often leads to what is called Twisted Scripture.
One of the most common expressions of Twisted Scripture that I have encountered reads this way, “God will never give you more than you can handle.” This saying has been said so many times that those words are found in all sorts of merchandise such as greeting cards, coffee cups, t shirts, and wall hangings. These words are often expressed to people who are grieving the loss of a loved one as a means of encouraging them through grief. I can tell you almost every grieving person I have counseled has come to hate those words. And they should hate those words because those words are wrong and are not found in the Bible. Not only is this saying wrongly attributed to the Bible, but the saying is spiritually destructive to Christians.
“God will never give you more than you can handle,” comes from a misquotation from the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. In that letter, Paul was covering a whole host of topics with one topic being the sin of idolatry committed by Hebrew ancestors. What is idolatry? Idolatry goes back to our list of Ten Commandments in which the first and second commandments say,
I – You shall have no other gods but me.
II - You shall not make unto you any graven images.
Idolatry worshipping and loving anything or anyone more than God alone.
Paul also addressed the sin of sexual immorality that had been committed by the ancestors of those in the Corinth church. Paul reminded his listeners that those who engaged in the sinful behavior of idolatry and sexual immorality were punished severely.
Now from this posture of addressing sins committed long ago. Paul wrote, “13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. 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 endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). It is from these words of the Bible that we have today the Twisted Scripture, “God will not give you more than you can bear.” There are here some remarkable differences in what the Bible says and what the Twisted Scripture says.
Let’s take a close look at what the Scripture, the Word of God, says. Once again, Paul wrote, “13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. 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 endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). Immediately, we notice the subject matter of the Word of God is temptation. And we immediately notice that the Twisted Scripture phrase, “God will never give you more than you can handle,” does not mention temptation at all.
What is temptation? There are many definitions of temptation but the one I want us to use today is that “Temptation is the act of being enticed to disobey God’s will, which is to sin.” We need to use some care here to make sure we remember that temptation and sin are related subjects, but they are not the same thing. Temptation is not sin, and sin is not temptation.
As to temptation, the enticement toward sin can come from the world around us, from another person, from within our own self, or from Satan. Paul said to the church, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.” Said most simply, “Any temptation you and I face has already been faced by your ancestors.” That was true when Paul wrote those words, and it is true today as well. It may be easier with the Internet for us to receive some temptations than in the past, but they are not new temptations. There is nothing unique about the temptations Paul’s listeners would have faced or the temptations we face today.
Moreover, no one is above being tempted to disobey God. Even sinless people were tempted. Eve and Adam, in the Garden of Eden, were sinless people. One day, while Eve was minding her own business, the serpent, Satan, tempted, enticed, Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus, another sinless person, after his baptism, was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. There Jesus fasted for 40 days. At the end of his fast, Satan tempted Jesus first to turn stones into bread for Jesus to feed himself. Satan then tempted Jesus to jump off the Temple in Jerusalem to prove God’s angels would catch Jesus before he struck the ground. Then for a third time Satan tempted Jesus by enticing Jesus to bow before Satan and receive in return all the kingdoms of the earth. Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation, sinned, and lost their state of sinlessness. Jesus did not succumb to Satan’s temptations and remained sinless. Everyone is subject to temptation but being tempted does not make you a sinner.
Let’s go back to Paul’s words again, “13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” For the moment, I want us to focus on that first phrase of the second sentence of verse 13, “And God is faithful.” In the Greek language of Paul’s letter, he wrote, “Theos pistos.” “God is faithful.” Paul’s words here are unqualified, meaning that God is not faithful in listening to prayers, or in caring about his creation, or in helping in times of trouble, or granting mercy, or anything else we might think about. Paul is saying some beautiful and life sustaining words here, “God is faithful,” without exception or reservation. Paul’s words are not new here. These words are found elsewhere in Scripture. Such as:
- The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)
- For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. (Psalm 33:4)
- Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. (Psalm 119:90)
I just want you to think about those words for a moment, “God is faithful,” “Theos pistos.” Who is God faithful to? God is faithful to you and to me. Let those words wrap around you for a moment and feel the security that those words bring to us. “Theos pistos.” “God is faithful.”
Again, we note that in the Twisted Scripture phrase, “God will never give you more than you can handle,” the idea that God is faithful is never mentioned. That is just so sad.
In recognizing the comfort of the words that “God is faithful,” we return to the words from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, “13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” There should be great joy in these words because what they say is that whenever we are tempted, that is whenever we are enticed to disobey God, then in that precise moment God is there with us. Why is God with us in temptation? Because in that moment of temptation, God, who is faithful, is not going to let us be tempted in such a way that we feel we have no alternative but to sin.
In In 1969, Comedian Flip Wilson introduced to the world, Geraldine, the fictional wife of a preacher. The character, Geraldine, had a catchphrase, “The Devil made me do it!” The idea that the devil made me do it is unscriptural. The devil, Satan, certainly tempts us but the devil is powerless to make us disobey God. Again, why is that? Back to Paul’s words again, “13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he [God] will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
All the power, 100% of the power over the temptations that come to us is held by God who stands right next to us whenever we are tempted. But. There is always a but. But God does not use any of that power to make the temptation just disappear. If a bottle of alcohol represents a temptation to you, God is not going to smash that bottle in front of you to end the temptation. He could but that is not what Scripture says God will do. Scripture does not say that God will make temptation go away. Instead, God uses His power to provide us a way out in the very face of the temptation itself.
The Twisted Scripture phrase, “God will never give you more than you can handle,” mentions nothing about the power of God that is available to us if we would just reach out to God. Even worse, that phrase says God is the one who has given us the burden to be handled in the first place. I cannot tell you the number of grieving people I have counseled in the last ten years who have struggled with this expression. Because they rightly ask, “Why would God burden me by taking away my loved one?” “Why would God think I can stand losing my loved one because I can’t imagine one more day of this misery.” “And if God gave me this burden, this death, why would I want to turn to him for healing?” Twisted Scripture is spiritually damaging. True Scripture, the true word of God, however, tells us God does not give the problem, here, temptation. Instead, God faithfully gives the solution, a way out of temptation. And remember we can take comfort that in speaking of temptation, Paul says without qualification, without exception, “God is faithful,” “Theos pistos,” reassuring us that God will be present in all the trials of our life, not to inflict them upon us, not to make them disappear, but to guide us through those trials.
In the Book of James, we would see this point reinforced. James wrote, “13 When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:13-15). Temptation does not come from God. Burdens do not come from God. Jesus made this point in when he said, “28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29). Jesus does not give burden. Jesus gives rest.
“God is faithful.” When we are tempted God will give us a way out of that temptation so that we do not sin. So, in every temptation God is present. In every temptation, God provides a way out. In every temptation from the world, from within ourselves, or from Satan there comes with it a spiritual test from God created by the presence of temptation. That test is, “Will we trust God by reaching out and take his way out of the temptation?” Will we grab onto that 100% of the power over temptation by reaching out to God?
Therefore, for every temptation that comes to us, there also comes with it a test of faith to reach out to God. James, brother of the Lord, Jesus, wrote, “12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12). Every temptation we face will come to an end. That temptation will end either with sin, because we disobeyed God and followed the temptation, or it will result in coming closer to God because we passed the test and took the path and drew in the power of that our faithful God created for us to escape the temptation.
Twisted Scripture is spiritually damaging. To believe that ““God will never give you more than you can handle,” is to believe God is the source of all manner of evil and bad in the world. This is simply wrong because God is faithful to you and to me. God is faithful. “Theos pistos.” God is faithful. Amen and Amen.