YOU CAN STUMBLE BUT YOU WON'T FALL
(Psalms 37:23-24) [23]The steps of a good man are
ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
[24]Though he fall, he shall not
be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.
* INTRODUCTION:
* One particular word in our text stands out in my mind. It’s the word
“though” that stands at the beginning of verse 24: “Though he fall.” Some
translations say, “When he falls.” Note that it does not say, “If he falls.”
There is a big difference between “when” and “if.” The latter states a
probability; the former declares a certainty. David understood that all
believers fall eventually. We stumble, we lose our way, we struggle, and
sometimes we trip and fall on our journey. No one is exempt. We all fall sooner
or later. It’s what happens when we fall that makes all the difference.
a. God ordains every step we take—the good and the bad,
the happy and the sad, the positive and the negative.
The verb “ordered” is very strong in the original Hebrew. It means to
establish something so that it has a strong foundation.
Proverbs 16:9 tells us that “in his heart a man plans his course, but
the LORD determines his steps.”
Same idea as our text. Most of us know that God “directs” our steps
(Proverbs 3:6). But this verb is even stronger. God not only “directs” our
steps, he also “determines” or “orders” or “ordains” our steps. This includes
our going out and our coming in, our lying down and our getting up, our waking
and our sleeping, our buying and our selling, our talking and our listening,
and our walking and our driving. Because he is God, there are no accidents with
him. Nothing ever happens to the child of God by luck, chance or fate. No
circumstance—whether good or bad—can come to us apart from God’s determined
purpose for us.
b. God Promises That When We Fall, We Will Not Be Utterly
Destroyed.
Some versions say, “Though he stumbles, he will not fall.” Picture a
trail that winds through a dense forest. As the pilgrim walks forward, he
doesn’t see the rock buried just beneath the surface, and so he trips and falls
to the ground. Or he trips over a root or he doesn’t see a sudden dip in the
trail. When the path is narrow and winding, it’s hard not to fall sometimes.
Life is like that. We all stumble in many ways. The word translated “utterly
destroyed” means to be cast headlong into a deep pit. It’s what happens when
you stand at the Grand Canyon peering over the edge, looking down 3,000 feet,
when someone pushes you from behind. When you finally hit bottom, you won’t
dust yourself off and keep on going. You’ve been “utterly destroyed.” God
promises that won’t happen to you and me. Though we may face desperate,
life-changing circumstances next year, God will not allow us to be utterly
destroyed. Nothing can happen that will sever our relationship with him.
* The reason is clear. He upholds us with his mighty hand. Think of a
father walking along with his young son by his side. There are two ways father
and son might hold hands. The young boy may reach up with his tiny hand to
grasp his father’s huge hand. That works until the child stumbles and he is
forced to let go of his father’s hand. But if the father places his huge hand
around his son’s tiny hand, the boy is safe no matter what happens because his
father’s hand holds him up. He may stumble but the father’s hand “upholds” him.
* Note that the “fall” may be a fall into trouble, calamity or
catastrophe or it may be a fall into serious moral sin. The fall might be
occasioned by the loss of a job, a health problem, the breakup of a marriage,
the end of a friendship, bankruptcy, or any sort of personal crisis that causes
the loss of your reputation. Or it could be moral sin, a series of foolish
choices that led you in a wrong direction so that you hurt your walk with God
and hurt those around you as well. Sometimes the “fall” of circumstances causes
a “fall” into bitterness, substance abuse, anger, rage, abusive speech, foolish
decisions, lust, adultery, or other sinful action.
I. Every Detail of Life Is Under God’s Control.
Intellectually we know this is true. If God is God, then he must know
about all the things that happen to us, and in some sense we can’t fully
understand, that “all things” includes both the best and the worst that comes
our way. After preaching this sermon, a friend asked if even our sins are
“ordered” by the Lord. We have to think carefully in answering a question like
this. God is never the author or instigator of sin. Never. He does not sin and
he does not tempt anyone to sin. Sin is always our own responsibility. But that
does not fully answer the question. If our sin can somehow exist independently
of God so that our sin (and indeed, all the sin and misery of the universe) can
somehow exist outside of God’s eternal plan, then God cannot truly be sovereign
over all parts of the universe. We might ask the question this way: Is God
sovereign over Satan? The answer must be yes. When you come all the way to the
bottom line, the answer goes something like this: God reigns over all parts of
the universe all the time, and he does it in such a way that all things must
fit into his eternal plan. This even includes the reality of sin itself. For
reasons that we only partly understand, God decreed to permit sin to enter the
universe (primarily to display his glory through the grace that would be shown
in redeeming sinners through the death of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ). When
we sin, we remain fully accountable for the wrong choices we make—and the
negative consequences we must face. But if God did not allow it to happen, it
would not happen. Thus, in the broadest sense of God’s sovereignty, even our
sin cannot take place apart from God’s divine decree. Is there a mystery here?
Absolutely, and it is a mystery so enormous that we will spend eternity
learning more about it, and marveling at the riches of God’s grace and the
wisdom of his plan. But if this is not true, then God is not truly God at all,
and we are (to borrow a Pauline phrase) of all men most miserable. But it is
true, and therefore we rejoice to serve a God whose ways are far beyond our limited
minds to understand. He can make the wrath of man praise him.
II. God Takes Pleasure in Our Struggle to Walk in
Holiness.
The last part of verse 23 says, “And he delights in his way.”
* The “he” refers to God and the
“his” refers to the individual believer.” Spurgeon says it very nicely, “As
parents are pleased with the tottering footsteps of their babes. All that
concerns a saint is interesting to his heavenly Father. God loves to view the
holy strivings of a soul pressing forward to the skies.” Consider a father and
his young daughter who is just learning how to walk. For months she has been
crawling; recently she has learned how to pull herself up and stand on her
wobbling legs while holding her father’s hand. One day she pulls her hand free,
wobbles for a moment, tries to take a step forward, and falls down. Does her
father spank her for falling down? Of course not. He smiles a bit at her tears,
and then he helps her back up. Good parents know that falling is a necessary
part of learning how to walk. If you never fall, you’ll never learn how to
walk. And parents do their children no favors by being so protective that their
children never fall down. Better that a child should fall a hundred times than
never to learn how to walk at all. Falling isn’t fun for the child, but a wise
parent knows that falling always comes before walking. It’s not that the father
enjoys seeing his little girl fall and shed tears each time. But he rejoices to
see her growing and straining to learn something new.
* This applies directly to the “falls” we take spiritually. Our
struggles are necessary even though they are not pleasant or easy to endure.
Sometimes (often!) we bring trouble on ourselves by the foolish choices we
make. And sometimes we end up hurting ourselves and those around us very
greatly by repeating those bad choices over and over again. Marriages end,
friendships are broken, churches split, our children suffer, and the cause of
Christ is hurt by the things we say and do. Sin is serious business, and we
never sin without hurting ourselves, and very often, those around us.
III. God Designs Our Trials So They Will Not Destroy Us.
This follows from all that I have said. Verse 24 assures us that though
we may “stumble” or “fall” temporarily, we will not be utterly destroyed. God
will not allow anything to permanently destroy our relationship with him. Not
even death itself can sever our strong connection with God. “He knows the way
that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).
When you are “in the furnace,” it is hard to believe that any good could result
from the fiery trial, but God says, “Wait for a while and you will see pure
gold.” During the worst moments, we take this by faith and hang on to God,
believing that better days must eventually come. Thus, it is that Job lost
everything, Joseph was cast into prison on a phony rape charge, and Jonah ended
up in the belly of a great fish. Jonah was a very reluctant prophet whose final
words are both angry and accusing. But still he was God’s man for Nineveh. God
said, “I’m going to send you to the belly of a fish so you can think about
things for a while.” He did, and eventually he was puked out on the beach (not
a very pleasant experience). Job lost everything and gained back more than he
lost. Joseph ended up the second most powerful man in Egypt. Sometimes our
trials lead to a promotion; other times we feel like we’ve been puked up on the
beach. God does it both ways—and we’ll probably experience both if we live long
enough. But God had bigger things in mind in all three cases. He wasn’t through
with Job or Joseph or Jonah. Nor is he through with us just because we stumble
and fall.
* Consider what Jesus said to Peter in the Upper Room on the night
before he was crucified: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.
But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you
have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31-32). This statement
deserves special notice because Jesus said it before Peter’s threefold denial.
In fact, Jesus said it just before Peter made his boastful promise of unending
faithfulness. The point is, Jesus saw it all coming, knew everything before it
took place:
The boasting,
The teenage girl around the fire,
The swearing,
The repeated denials,
The shame,
The bitter tears,
The guilt,
The restoration.
* He knew Peter better than Peter knew himself. He knew the “steps”
Peter was about to take in the wrong direction. In a sense, he had more genuine
confidence in Peter than Peter had in himself. By himself, Peter was just a
braggart. But Jesus said, “I have prayed for you.” He didn’t stop Peter from
boasting or from denying. He let matters take their natural course, but he
prayed for Peter, knowing that Peter at heart was a good man who loved him, and
knowing that his denial was not the “real” Peter. The “real” Peter was the man
who declared, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus allowed
Peter to fall away, knowing that through his prayers, Peter would eventually
return, and when he did, he would be a better, stronger man, humbled by his failure,
ready to serve the Lord with a humility born of painful failure.
IV. We Will Not Utterly Fall Because God Will Not Let Go.
*Theologians call this the doctrine of eternal security. It simply means
that those whom God saves, he saves forever. Though we stumble and fall a
thousand times, God’s love is firm because his purposes are eternal. Our
salvation rests not on our performance but on God’s unchanging character. “No
saint shall fall finally or fatally. Sorrow may bring us to the earth, and
death may bring us to the grave, but lower we cannot sink, and out of the
lowest of all we shall arise to the highest of all” (Charles Spurgeon).
* Martin Luther said that it takes three things to make a man of
God—meditation, prayer and temptation. We’re fine with the first two because we
know we need to read the Bible and pray. But most of us would not add
“temptation” to the list. Luther meant that godly character can only be
developed in the crucible of life where we fight many battles with the world,
the flesh, and the devil. The temptation to quit, to despair, to give in to
bitterness, to flee the struggle, to yield to lust, to give in to greed, to
indulge ourselves, to walk in pride, these things either destroy us or they
make us stronger. Prayer and Bible reading alone cannot make us godly. We need
the struggles of life to make us strong.
* Three Simple Statements
Let’s sum up the application of this message with three simple
statements:
1) Your struggles are necessary because this will benefit you to make
your faith to God stronger and stronger – fight on!
2) Your Father has not forgotten you because He like your dear father in
the flesh who always watching you and support you when you fall– hang on!
3) Your future is rest assured to prosperous and victorious – so be
faithful walk on and always abounding in the work of the Lord
( I Corinthians
15:58 ) Therefore,
my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
* Here are three good mottoes for 2004: Fight on! Hang on! Walk on!
* I close with this thought. God will not put you in an unbearable
situation in 2004. But he may put you in a situation that seems unbearable so
that you will turn to Him. Remember that God does not give his strength in
advance but only when needed. Each day this year you will have what you need.
We may therefore go forth into the new year with confidence, hope, and joy.
* And in the end we come back to the Lord Jesus and back to the cross.
Let me end this last sermon of the year with the words I have said many times
before:
* If you are tired of your sin, run to the cross.
* If you want a new start in life, run to the cross.
* If you feel like a failure, run to the cross.
* If you fear the future, run to the cross.
* If you need hope and encouragement, run to the cross.
* If you want to meet Jesus, run to the cross.
* For those who don’t know the Lord, the Bible says there is only one
step between you and destruction. But there is also only one step between you
and Jesus. It’s the step of faith. Reach out to Jesus as Lord and Savior. He
will come to you and your life will never be the same.
* I said earlier that next year will
be just like last year. Let me amend that statement just a bit: Next year will
be just like last year—only entirely different! Some things will be the same,
much will be different, and some things will be brand-new to us. Be encouraged,
child of God. The future rests in the good hands of a God who loves you more
than you can imagine. You may stumble next year, but you won’t completely fall.
This is God’s promise to you. Amen.
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