1 Corinthians 10:13 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.

Break this down into its component parts. Temptation first overpowers us, it happens to all of us. Then we see that God has provided a way to escape. Sadly we have to endure that temptation that has a grip on us until we discover His escape plan.

The power of temptation is hidden from us until God shows us we are being held captive. Escape plans only work for prisoners. What? Me? Really, I am a prisoner? In some cases the insidious plans of the enemy are so sly we do not even know we are infected until we start to exhibit symptoms of the disease.

2 Corinthians 2:11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

We might know his designs but the cunning devil uses temptations to outwit us and we will begin to act in a manner that is inconsistent with our abiding love.

Psalm 73:22 I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.

We are not animals but when we begin to act like animals, then something is wrong. The power of temptation will lie to us and say “God made you this way, you can’t help yourself.” That is when the Holy Spirit reveals the truth and says, “You are a child of God, act like it.”

Acts 21:28 crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”

Those priestly men set up a permanent structure to house their most sacred relic, the Ark of the Covenant. They designed its structure after the wilderness tabernacle. What they failed to recognize was that the wilderness tabernacle was a temporary place that was never meant to be unmovable. In creating a building to house the Ark, they made His law intractable.

• Romans 8:3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
• Hebrews 7:28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

The temporary was replaced by the permanent.