Have you ever known someone who had a completely inaccurate view of themselves? The fellow who insists on singing in the choir even though he’s tone-deaf. The guy who is sure that he can fix everything, but who regularly has to call the plumber or electrician when he gets in over his head. The know-it-all who boasts of his ability to pick winners in the stock market, but whose portfolio never seems to grow in value. It’s easy to laugh at such overconfidence, even while we admit we are all guilty of it at times.

But in today’s passage, Paul reminds us that we can be just as wrong about our spiritual condition. He points to the example of the people who God delivered from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt. They passed through the waters of the Red Sea (v. 2), ate manna from heaven (v. 3) and drank water that God miraculously made to gush from a rock (v. 4).

And yet, time after time, they became unfaithful to the God Who had saved them. They grumbled and complained about their hunger and thirst (v. 10). They turned away from God’s law, engaging in sexual immorality (v. 8). They even made a golden calf and worshipped it (v. 7). Yes, they had been saved, but they weren’t acting much like it.

And Paul says that the same thing is possible for those who say they are following Christ. Sure, we may have made a public profession of faith, but if we keep on acting the way those ungrateful, unfaithful people did in the wilderness, presuming upon God’s grace all the while continuing to live the way that we want to, we might think we are standing firm but actually being falling away from Christ (v. 12).

So today, let’s not just say we are following Jesus. Let’s actually do that – standing firm against all manner of temptation in the certainty that God will help us escape or endure it (v. 13). For the God Who has been faithful to save us is willing and able to keep us safe from anyone or anything that might try to pull us away from Him.

I Corinthians 10:1-13 (ESV)

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,
2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
3 and all ate the same spiritual food,
4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.
7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents,
10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.
11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.