The Nearest Exit

“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” (1 Cor. 10:13 NIV, emphasis added).

As I sat in the sanctuary Sunday and heard these words, my eyes were drawn to the EXIT sign above the platform doors. I thought about how every tempting situation has one of those EXIT signs somewhere – a way of escape. (How hard it is to remember that in the time of temptation!)

And I couldn’t help but recall, too, the story made popular many years ago by Wendell “Wendy” Bagwell, a Christian singer and comedian, southern-style.

It seems he was once the guest of a congregation which, after the concert, proceeded to bring out a half-dozen rattlesnakes to handle as evidence of their faith. Apparently in their maneuvers with the serpents, they blocked the entrance door of the church. Wendy was more than a little nervous at that point, and asked someone nearby where the back door was. “They don’t have a back door,” he was told.

To which he replied, “Where do you reckon they want one?”

We're in Wendy's shoes more often than we realize. The Bible calls Satan a serpent. A tempter. Temptation is a sort of being "shut up in a room with him," a situation that sometimes becomes more drawn-out and dangerous than necessary. Maybe we're not nervous enough to have the sense to leave, or we feel that we haven’t conquered temptation unless we can be near it without succumbing, so we “keep the liquor in the house.” We sidle up to the snake.

Part of the battle is knowing when to run. We don't flee when when Satan comes to attack our faith or hinder our progress or hamper our witness or bury us under a landslide of discouragement or fear. That's the time to stand firm (James 4:7 – notice that Satan is the one who will be doing the fleeing!). But in the time of temptation, there’s no need to stick around and court disaster. God has given us a will and a pair of feet –

We don’t even have to create our own back door.