"When a Christian Falls" - Pastor Doug Batchelor

our message this morning is dealing with when a Christian Falls and the Bible has a lot to say about the subject of falling now I've got an assignment for the young people you're gonna hear me during the message use the word fall or fallen or falling several times I'm curious how many times I'm gonna say it actually so if you'd begin counting now I'd like you to tell me after the service how many times you hear me say the word fall there's one and you can report on that if you get it right your parents will give you a special dessert you know there's actually a somewhat famous report that has made the rounds it's also a little bit humorous about a bricklayer who sent in a report to an insurance company that was asking for more information regarding an accident this is dates back several years but it's a masterpiece I'd like to share this with you I'm writing in response to your request for additional information in block number three of the accident reporting form I put poor planning as the cause of my accident you said in your letter that I should explain more fully I trust that the following details will be sufficient I am a bricklayer by trade on the day of the accident I was working alone on a roof of a 10-story building when I completed my work I discovered I had about five hundred pounds of bricks left over rather than carry them down by hand I decided to lower them to the ground in a barrel by using the pulley which fortunately was attached to the side of the building at the tenth floor securing the Rope at ground level I went to the roof loaded the five hundred pounds of bricks in the barrel then went back down to the ground to untie the rope holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the five hundred pounds of bricks you'll note in block eleven of the accident reporting form that I weigh 135 pounds due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly I lost my present of mind and forgot to let go of the rope needless to say I proceeded at a rapid rate up the site of the building in the vicinity of the fifth floor I met the sight of the barrel coming down this explains the fractured skull and broken collarbone fortunately by this time I regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope in spite of my pain I continued my rapid ascent not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were lodged two Knuckles deep in the Foley at approximately the same time however the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel devoid of the weight of the bricks the barrel weight now approximately thirty pounds I refer you again to my weight in block number eleven of the accident reporting form as you might imagine I began a rapid descent down the side of the building in the vicinity of the fifth floor I met the empty barrel coming up again this accounts for the two fractured ankles and lacerations of my legs and lower body fortunately the second encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen the injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks and only three vertebrae are cracked I'm sorry to report however that as I lay there on the bricks in pain and unable to stand forgetting the empty barrel ten storeys above me I lost my presence of mind and I let go over the rope it's sort of funny sometimes people laugh when others fall they've got a special type of comedy it's called physical comedy and some comedians are known for the their acts involved a lot of falling our Dick Van Dyke Jackie Gleason and Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges and Jerry Lewis and always trying to vocal affe by falling and people sometimes think it's funny when they see someone else fall they've discovered it even some animals chimpanzees for example will laugh when they see another chimp trip or fall kind of sinister that you're glad it's not you I suppose but biblically falling is not a funny matter it can be very serious all of the pain and the death and the misery that we see in the world today is a result of a fall it began with the fall of Lucifer you read in Revelation chapter 12 there was a war of rebellion because of his pride the greatest of God's angels Lucifer who later known as the devil and Satan he rebelled against God and there was a war in heaven he lost he and one-third of the angels that joined him in his rebellion fought against Christ and 2/3 of the Angels and they were defeated and the Bible says they were cast out jesus said by the way that's revelation 12:9 and Luke 10:18 Jesus said I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven Satan fell Isaiah 14:12 how you are fallen from heaven o Lucifer son of the morning so we know our world is in a fallen state and it all began with the devil who fell from his position he fell through pride people still fall through that and ever since the devil fell he's been doing all he can to trip up everybody on earth and it started with what they call the fall of man that came after the fall of Lucifer they are in the Garden of Eden man was given a simple test of loyalty to God in His Word or they could choose to follow the rebel which involved really self worship and because Adam and Eve did not trust the Lord and maybe they wanted the godlike powers a serpent promised they fell Romans 5:12 therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin so death spread to all men because all sinned that fall then spread through the world and and we experience it all the times Romans 3:23 for how many have sinned all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God we've all experienced that because of the fall of Adam and Eve a pastor was talking to his five-year-old son about Adam and Eve and and the temptation in the garden he says now what can we learn from that and the boy said don't play with snakes and it's still good advice do not listen to the devil now that brings us to our story that was in our scripture reading about a person that's in church that falls and it's a story of Eutychus that you find in Acts chapter 20 and I'd like to take you back there again very quickly Paul is preaching in this region of Asia he's gonna leave the next day and he doesn't know if he'll ever see him again and so the whole church has gathered for the Sabbath they closed the Sabbath again and now technically it's the first day of the week and he preaches and he preaches and he preaches and back then at night they didn't have LED lights they didn't have incandescent bulbs or fluorescent lights they use lamps and these oil lamps tended to put off a little bit of oil and it says that there were many lamps in the upper chamber and the reason they mention that is if there's a lot of lamps there's often some smoke residue you ever choke when someone puts out all the candles on a birthday cake and he got hard to breathe and so this young man thought well I'm gonna sit a little closer to the window the building's full of people so it's short on oxygen it may have been a warm night and the lamps are filling the place was smoke and so Eutychus thought that he had a good seat and he leaned down in this stone windowsill three stories up tried to keep some fresh air and still he had one year on the sermon and a certain young man named eutychus being fallen into a deep sleep now there's a lesson one of the ways that you fall is by sleeping in church I used to think that was a problem and then I sat a few times where you sit and I heard a preacher preach like Paul not well but long and I had an awful hard time keeping my eyes open you know sometimes the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak amen and I know what it's like to sit there but especially if the preacher is talking in a monotone voice and then pretty soon all you're hearing is me and you started getting really tired right that's why I tried to use the Socratic method when I'm teaching I ask you questions because there's something that happens mentally when someone asks you a question you feel like you ought to wake up and answer and there tries to keep people engaged but Paul preached on Paul was long in preaching now there's a lesson for any pass was it watch this video it's not just sleeping in church that's dangerous but you can kill off your flock if you preach too long can I get an amen and I'm talking to myself I know and Eutychus overcome with sleep not realizing the precarious place don't sleep in the edge of a window you ever seen people when they start falling asleep they kind of flinch and they wake themselves up I've done that on a plane a few times where you try to sleep sitting up and I've got some stranger sitting behind beside me and then all of a sudden you know who knows what's happening but you have this weird dream and you're kind of half asleep in the sleep and you jerk and you flinch and it's kind of embarrassing because a person looks at you like I say I'm sorry I didn't mean to hit you and he flinched but he flinched and he fell out the window he fell down from the third storey and he was taken up dead parents and people ran downstairs and he they embrace him and he he died from the fall it was fatal Nepal feels really bad because he knows partly it's because he preached too long and he went down it's interesting the word that's used Eutychus fell and paul went and fell on him he embraced him and he's praying as he's hugging him and he tells the crowd gathered around trouble not yourselves for his life is in him now at this point you're in Acts chapter 20 false faith is pretty strong he's already affected some miracles including maybe his own resurrection when he was stoned and not that Paul resurrected himself and God raised him up and a miracle takes place boy was dead Paul go isn't he embraces you know when Elijah and Elijah resurrected a boy maybe Paul is thinking back on this story they both did it through physical contact in one case Elijah put himself on the boy and embraced him troubled not yourself his life is in him and so there was great rejoicing now how is it that he fell here he's a memories in church he's listening to a sermon and he fell where was he sitting he's sitting near the edge you know how people fall out of church they stay on the edge if he had been in the room it might have been a little tougher but he wanted to stay on the edge and you know who it was the devil attacks those on the edge who does the wolf go after it's the lands that are on the edge and a lot of people that are sort of on the edge of church now I'm not speaking specifically to you young people are sitting on the outside of the building right now but I'm talking about those who in their lives they sort of go to church once a week they want to stay connected but they're living on the edge and they I kind of have one foot in the church and they've got one foot in the world when the children of Israel came out of Egypt the Amalekites attacked them and they attacked the stragglers that were on the edge so if you want to be safe you want to be right in the middle of the flock amen get involved get in the middle of it get in the thick of it you're a lot more you're a lot safer you're more inclined to survive as a Christian if you stay involved in the church it's one of our goals here in Granite Bay is you'll notice that we try to involve the young people and the music and the scripture reading some of them volunteer with the media they help with the sound and I think it's so important that we keep the young people engaged and we keep them involved they are a lot more likely to stay with the faith if they sit near the edge and all they hear is long-winded preachers there's a chance they can fall and it's not only young people that fall but it happens to all of us the Bible says the Apostles fell Jesus foretold that that would happen Matthew chapter 26 verse 31 jesus said and I'm reading this from the English standard version he said you will all fall I think King James says you will all stumble but that's the word you will all fall away because of me this night for it is written I will strike the Shepherd and the Sheep of the flock will be scattered how is it that Peter ended up denying Christ have you read there in mark chapter 14 it says Peter followed after Jesus was arrested Peter followed from a distance and because he was following from a distance and when Jesus went into the judgment Hall Peter stayed on the edge hanging out with the the enemies of Christ and when he was hanging out with the enemies eventually he didn't item so you want to stay in the middle of it says they all forsook him and fled one of the ways that people fall is you can fall through pride this is how the devil fell notice first Timothy three six don't exalt and novice as an elder less being puffed up with pride he falls in the same condemnation as the devil a way to keep from falling is through humility proverbs 16:18 pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall and you can read in first Corinthians 10:12 therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall so how do Christians fall they can fall through thinking too much about themselves just like the devil walls were prying I think this is really where Judas fell Jesus just had such confidence in himself he was so sure of his abilities he thought that he was going to manipulate circumstances that would force Jesus to be proclaimed king and he was going to get all the credit for it he didn't he didn't want Jesus washing his feet when Jesus washed the feet of the other disciples they all humbled themselves Judas had his feet washed and he went out and he betrayed Christ and so it's through pride now some Falls you know we're gonna talk about how you can recover from a fall but some Falls are fatal you need to just know that several people in the Bible tells us fell one of the things armies would sometimes do is they would chase one army up against a precipice and drive them off a cliff even David did that to his adversaries at one point there was a wicked king by the name of Ahaz I our second Kings one two he was sitting in the window he leaned against the lattice in the window and it broke and he fell this is the very first part of second Kings now a has i''m mother was Jezebel father was a hab he fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria and he lay sick and he sent messengers telling them go inquire of bail ziba of the god of Ekron whether i shall recover from this sickness now right there you know it's not going to end well because instead of asking of the Lord he's asking to bail ziba a Philistine god whether or not he would be healed Elijah sent a message he said you don't need to send messengers to Bale Z Bob I'm sending a message from Jehovah you're going to die Hezekiah was on a sick bed where he was gonna die he prayed and Isaiah went back and said God's heard your prayer you're gonna live but hey Isaiah did not survive his fall how did his mother die not only did he fall out the window Jezebel died by being thrown up a window actually through a fall and she's like that woman in revelation 17 Jezebel's the epitome of that Scarlet harlot you find she's actually called the harlot in Revelation chapter 17 better known as Babylon what does the Bible say about babbling babbling is fallen is fallen and they don't survive that fall Hebrews 6:4 now you've got to be careful you know we are so thankful that God is merciful God is forgiving if it wasn't for his persistent mercy where would we be if if we only had 10 years of mercy those of us that are 20 would be all out and God's merciful is so great but there is a risk you can presume on God's mercy there's a verse we get questions on this verse in our our Bible program on a regular basis because it almost seems like it leaves no hope notice Hebrews 6 verse 4 it's in the Bible you got to look at it difficult verse 4 it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and they've tasted the heavenly gift and they have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and they've tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come if they fall away to renew them again to repentance since they crucify again for themselves a son of God and put him to an open shame here he's telling us that he says it's impossible for people who have had all these benefits if they fall away in other words if they turn away from every one of the best gifts of God what more can God do and Peter describes that and he said it's like a pig who is washed that were turns to wallowing in the mire or her dog that turns to its vomit again some who fall can't get up again and because they they had all the benefits and they turned their back on all the benefits now I don't want to discourage you some are thinking does that mean that if a believer turns from God they cannot be saved now of course that's not teaching that what would you do with the story of the prodigal son what would you do the story of David or Peter or even Moses when he lost his temper and and so Christians fall and God is very patient the Apostles they they like I said they denied the Lord and and I we're so thankful for God's mercy but why you you take a lot of you take a lot of risks if you live near the edge it's kind of like riding a motorcycle if you keep wondering how far you can lean on the turns eventually you'll find what that point is by falling and you may not survive and so don't presume on God's mercy because some Falls there's no recovery for I've got a friend that did tree service work and it's one of the most dangerous occupations and he fell and he broke his back paralyzed from the waist down and he's looking forward to the second coming but in this life there'll be no full recovery you should be a little scared of heights I don't think you ought to be you know kind of person that you don't want to get anywhere near the edge and enjoy anything but you should be a little showers on the ladder yesterday I started thinking eventually you know you get old your balance isn't that good I've had pretty good balance I thought I better be careful I get up on this ladder nobody's home I could be laying on my back out there you never know when you're gonna get to that point where you think you've got your balance and you don't you don't want to find out the hard way what that point is right but you can learn from your falling how many of you by show of hands think you fell when you were learning to walk that should be every hand isn't that right and so there's a lot to be learned by falling and a certain amount of falling is expected and you know even for baby Christians I used to think you know in in a perfect world when someone comes to Christ and they accept Jesus if they really have enough faith they never need to sin again I do you know I've come to believe that's not very realistic it seems like when a person first comes to Christ there's never a good excuse for sin don't misunderstand but typically when we are learning the new way of walking in the Lord you're gonna make mistakes the Bible says in Isaiah chapter one we've got to learn to do good that's a learning process that means you don't know everything about it you have to unlearn a lot of mistakes so you may learn along the way you know baby Eagles now hummingbirds and Eagles are different hummingbirds the babies when they first leave the nest they're flying it's just like they know no lessons they don't get a license a medical anything they just find eagles are a little different they have to sort of get the hang of it and some Eagles do not survive I think I've heard one out of five Eagles does not survive its first flight because you know eagle nests are usually very high they need to learn sometimes the wait until they're up there in the nest and they wait until the the wind picks up and they'll just hover over the nest and then pull their wings and they'll hover in the pool and they get the hang of it sometimes when they're making their first flight the mother or the father goes underneath them and when they realize they're dropping out of control they kind of catch them and either lower them down easy or lift them back up again that's why God uses that phrase when he talks to Israel it says like an eagle I bore you on my wings because there's a learning process involved and sometimes it takes time for us to learn so don't be discouraged sometimes we learned through our Falls and through our trials heard about a man in Boston William Levine had a butcher shop in Brooklyn I'm sorry not Boston Brooklyn and one month he was robbed four times and he thought you know this is really dangerous business back then it was still novelty he bought himself a bulletproof vest some of the other proprietors they're in Brooklyn's a rough area they said where'd you get your vest and he started telling him where well he pretty soon he started selling this to the other businessman now he has closed the butcher shop and he is a full-time bulletproof vest seller he's got a company called body armor international and he sells the five to six hundred bulletproof vests a month through his robberies he thought what a terrible thing well actually it became an opportunity for him sometimes the trials would go through prepare us now you don't want to ever do anything to make someone else fall ever have someone trip you for a joke one of the gags we used to pull in school is you know a person stands up to get something and you pull their chair back whether Santa and they think the chair is there and they go to sit down and it's not there and I used to think that was a funny joke and I did it to one of the girls in our class she fell on a very hard concrete linoleum floor she broke her tailbone she was crying and she had to sit on one of these special pillows for a while after that and I felt so bad I just thought it was gonna be a joke he should never do anything to make someone else fall I think almost worse no worse than a Christian sinning is when a Christian attempts another dissent and Bible says that too you know when they were building their houses in Israel notice Deuteronomy 22 8 when you build a new home then you shall make a parapet you should make a guardrail for you on the roof that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone Falls from it they were to protect their roofs make sure there was a railing or something you don't want anyone follow you know if you remove they often went up on their roofs and I could cite many examples in the Bible of that Ecclesiastes 8:10 he that digs a pit if you dig a for someone to trip into your pit you will fall on the pit that you dig matthew 18:6 jesus said whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to fall stumble it'd be better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea how does the Lord feel about it if we cause someone else to fall by our bad example or maybe it's even a very direct enticement romans 14 13 therefore let us resolve this not to put a stumbling block or a calls to fall in our brother's way we want to do everything we can to encourage everybody to survive amen and the Bible talks about those who have fallen from grace he says you have become estranged from Christ you who attempt to be justified by the law you have fallen from grace some people fall theologically they get off on a tangent they either think they're saved by works or they believe so much in in grace that they live a presumptious life abusing God's mercy and so they get mixed up in in some deviant theology and they fall it's called apostasy you know what apostasy means to stand away from something and it's often thought of as they've fallen from the church Hebrews 12:15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God and Matthew 5:14 Jesus said let them alone they are blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind what happens they will both fall in the ditch now you can survive a fall and that's one of the most important things I want to tell you we've already established I won't ask for a show of hands I expect if you're honest every hand would go up how many of us have fallen in seeking to walk with the Lord at some point along the way in varying degrees we've disobeyed we've done what we knew we shouldn't do and then we repent you know I saw there was a interesting amazing fact July 30 2016 Luke Aikins fell 25 thousand feet without a parachute and lived that's pretty amazing he did it on purpose I don't recommend that he was a professional skydiver and he learned that even before he opened his chute he had learned to steer his body so carefully he thought you know I'd like to break a record I want to be the first one to be able to go 20,000 feet and land without a parachute now there are some people that have fallen even higher during World War 2 there was this one pilot his plane got shot up everyone bailed out of the plane his parachute was on fire he decided do I want to die by burning in the plane or do I want to die by hitting the ground he jumped out of the plane I can't remember his name right now without a parachute fell 18,000 feet from his bomber yet he landed in Germany hit the side of a hill in winter when there was snow on the ground and he only broke his ankle there was a lady who is a flight attendant on a plane in Yugoslavia that was bombed and she survived matter of fact I think I've got that in my notes since we're talking about these amazing facts ya see their plane was bombed she was the only survivor she was in the tail section of the plane and Serbian woman vesna vulovic january 26 1972 flying over the czech republic Croat terrorists placed a bomb onboard the j8e Yugoslavs blown to smithereens except the tail section where she was strapped it fell to the ground again hit a mountainside where there was snow she broke a lot of bones she survived and she actually went back to work for the same airline that takes courage oh and she fell 33,000 feet it's amazing that she lived cos it's higher than Everest and there's no oxygen up there so you can survive a fall I don't recommend you jump going back to Luke who jumped from that plane how did he survive his fall he had a net that was built an enormous net that was hoisted way up off the ground some of you you know when your rides highway 65 you see those long poles that have a net that's to catch the golf ball so they don't hit the freeway well they had a net that was almost that big and he had to hit that net now it looked pretty big when you were on the ground but when you're falling from 25,000 feet it took a while for he could even find it and you have to jump at just the right spot but when he saw it on the ground he steered himself in he didn't hit the net dead center there hydraulics video this and just before he hits the net he needs to know how to turn around because when you're free falling I actually jumped out of an airplane once you and your free-falling you fall like this so you can have some control and you steer yourself with your hands but you don't want to land like that with your face on the net you break your back he had to at the right moment then flip over and Trust he was over at the net just before he landed and he survived I think he's only doing it one time which would be enough for me so you can survive a fall I said all of that to say that and you can survive a big fall but it's not always easy how do you survive you first of all if we sin what are we told to do confess our sin to the Lord repent go to the Lord and frere claim the promise that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness then does God forgive us how do we know because he said so what if I don't feel forgiven you don't go based on how you feel but I have problems forgiving myself are you setting yourself up as a higher tribunal than God do you think that your judgment is more important than God's judgment if God says I forgive you if we repent for what is repentance well it's being sorry for your sin not just sorry you got caught but remorseful and you don't want to do it again you don't want to hurt him and this is a very important teaching you don't hear a lot about but it was a primary teaching in the Bible Bible says Jesus began preaching repent John the Baptist began preaching repent the disciples began preaching men and brethren what shall we do Peter said repent repentance is a genuine sorrow for sin and the desire to stop doing that which hurts God hurts your neighbor and hurts yourself and will ultimately end in your eternal loss so if you fall repent confess and then believe because you cannot be saved without faith he says I will forgive you and if you do these things you repent and confess and I will cleanse you from all unrighteousness so easy he's not putting you on probation he says you were forgiven you're freely forgiven David confessed his terrible sin and God said your sin has been put away when he repented he forgave him Isaiah said what was me I am undone I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of him people of unclean lips and God touched a coal to his mouth and said your sin is purged your sin is taken away Zacchaeus said if I've taken anything from any man by false accusation and God said salvation has come to this house as soon as they repented and confessed thief on the cross Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom what did Jesus say here's a guy he's a thief a rebel and in one passage it says guilty of murder and God said you'll be with me in paradise believe that God forgives you and when you know that you're forgiven you don't want to jeopardize that you want to live and walk in a newness of life amen you know they had this famous commercial that was put out years ago by Life Alert a lot of people tease but it typically showed an old person falls and they're laying on the kitchen floor and they're calling out help I fallen and I can't get up any of you remember that one it's a good sermon title my friend John Lincoln preached the sermon help I've fallen and I can't get up and it's advertising that if you had this special Life Alert button wherever you are all you do is you press that button and it'll call now they got a lot of stuff it you can use yourself a lot of ways to do it now but back then it was really it was high-tech you press this panic button it'll notify the authorities and you can wear it around your neck so if you ever fall and you're living alone you could press the button and the help will come and rescue you how many of you like to have a salvation button like that Lord I've fallen and I can't get up now I want to illustrate something here I'm looking for a couple of volunteers I'd like a couple of young people that would help me there in the back as of course right come on up two of you yeah I saw two hands go up there you go all right that'll work that's perfect come on up here I want to illustrate something all right let's see here you can come here over here young lady here you got any other side of her okay can you stand on one foot can you hold that for a minute okay not and not you okay now while you're standing on one foot I want you to take one finger push your shoulder and see if you can push it over one finger okay all right you're enjoying this aren't you okay okay now I want you to hold my hand now stand on one foot is that a little harder you're gonna hurt her you know what the point is it really helps if you got a hand to hold when you're trying to stand up and keep from falling amen thank you very much you did a good job so it's not just that you fall we want to learn how to not fall amen does somebody offer us a hand John 10:28 and I give them eternal life Jesus speaking I give them eternal life and they will never perish neither will anyone snatch them out of my hand my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand you know this actually shared this at prayer meetings as some of you already heard this story but Karen and I in the family we were on vacation last week went and saw the girls and the grandkids in Arizona and then Karen and Nathan and I drove back in one day 1415 hours from Sedona Arizona it was longer than that hoped we were gonna get back by 9:00 there were accidents and traffic and we ended up getting back about midnight has passed my bedtime you ever notice when you get a long trip well it seems like the last few miles are the longest you're so anxious to get home and we get home and we open the garage door and we are so excited to get in the house and unpack and get in bed and the house is locked which you think would be normally said we don't have a key we never locked the inside we locked the garage and the door between the garage and the house is usually open well we had a friend that was doing some painting we said just shut the garage door when you go out well he thought well I'm gonna make sure I lock the house up real good because I know they're gone he went and he locked so we're over all stuck I can't get in the house I went I checked the sliding doors they're all locked the windows they're all locked everything's all locked up and we're just going oh we're that far away from home we've just gone 14 hours thousands of miles were that far away we can't get in the house that's an exasperated feeling and so um Karen said well we can call a locksmith or we can go to a hotel and I'm thinking I'm not doing that I'm a proud man I'm a former thief I'm not gonna walk in and get in my own house so I said there's got to be a way and so I thought oh wait a second now I could go into the Attic here in the garage and there's an access in the laundry room but there's nothing under than access and so I went up into the attic and I'm there you know all the insulation I'm breathing I'm coughing and and looking around and the access is covered and so I've got to pull this insulation try and find it and I don't have a light I said Karen find my phone she's looking around in the car trying to find my phone so I've got a flashlight and then she finally says it's on your belt there I had it the whole time you ever do that so that now I'm humiliated and I'm locked out of my house finally I find that and I move it and I hope I get the cover out took a while to get think I couldn't find a way I had to screw something in there to pull the cover off and and and it's a long way down it's probably only about you know eight feet but it looks long when you're holed and I said Nathan come on up here I thought I'm not strong enough to hold him up but he's a you know strapping young man I thought lower your old man down and so I said no whatever you do don't let go and he lost his grip he dropped me on the washing machine and our washing machine lid that goes like that I was ok I didn't get hurt yeah the only thing hurt was my pride and it was good to be home but so you can survive a fall but Jesus will never let go of you he will not lose his grip amen the Bible says you can't keep a good man down proverbs 24:16 for a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again but the wicked will fall by calamity psalm 37:23 the steps of a good man are ordered by the lord and he delights in his way though he fall he will not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholds him with his hand Micah 7 8 do not rejoice over me my enemy when I fall I will rise when I sit in darkness the Lord will be a light to me God has several promises in his world word that yes even his people sometimes fall he says the righteous men may fall seven times he actually might not think of him as a righteous man but he's a pretty colorful character from American history PT Barnum P stands for Phineas anyone here named their kid Phineas any more parents were Christians I think his father was a pastor and he actually was a very religious man in some ways he never drank he fought against slavery but he he had some pretty dubious acts you know he's the one who made the Siamese twins famous it was PT Barnum that he had this American Museum of oddities and yet General Tom Thumb he's it wasn't a general but he thought make it interesting call him a general and he was like 24 inches tall and he had this he claimed he found a mermaid and he sewed this stuffed monkey to a fishtail and he just had all these very interesting bizarre acts and some were genuine and yet he had the bearded lady and if you've ever used the word jumbo to describe something big that's because of PT Barnum he had a big elephant that they named jumbo and he became the synonymous of anything very big well he had a the hard way he was pretty poor when he's young he worked his way up became very wealthy with this museum people would pay 25 cents to walk through and look at all the oddities and the bizarre things but that museum burnt down the Confederates set it on fire because of his being so outspoken against slavery so he lost everything gained his fortune back again he hired a singer named Jenny Lind he found the sensational singer and he made a fortune sponsoring her he rebuilt the museum they burned it down again brought back down to nothing and then he got some other amazing acts and things and rebuilt the museum a matter of fact the place in that museum is still there today it's called Madison Square Garden but they in build Madison Square Garden until his museum burnt down a third time they rebuilt Madison Square Garden he said I'm taking the museum on the road and it became known as Barnum and Bailey's greatest show on earth but he wouldn't give up you know I watched this special on PT Barnum and I thought like I was real rascal but he lost everything and made it all back again three times because he would not give up you know the Bible says a righteous man falls seven times we've got God to help us don't get discouraged if you fall Bible says Mary Magdalene out of whom they cast Seven Devils now somewhere along the way if you're a mature Christian this is a very important point yeah baby you expect the baby to learn to walk there you're gonna fall in the process but if they're still fallen in there 15 years old start to worry right as you continue to grow you should be falling less are you learning to walk with the Lord Hebrews 10:26 you gotta learn not to fall eventually for if we sin willfully after we've received the knowledge of the truth there's no longer a sacrifice for sin Psalm 56 13 for you have delivered my soul from death you have kept my feet from falling that I might walk before God in the light of the Living Christian should have a consistent walk you make certain mistakes you repent you confess as time goes by you should be making progress in those areas someone say Amen please Psalm 116 verse 8 for you have delivered my soul from death my eyes from tears and you've delivered my feet from falling Jude 124 now to him his benediction at the end of Jude who is able to keep you from falling you keep your hand in the hand of the man that stoles the waters you know that song Psalm 94 18 if I say my foot slips your mercy O Lord will hold me up Psalm 18 36 he not only holds your hand it says you enlarged my path under me so my feet did not slip God can give you a consistency in your walk there's a quote from the book sons and daughters of God I want to read you it's from page 154 our work is to strive to attain in our sphere of action the perfection that Christ in His life on earth attained in every phase of character our goal as Christians is to be like race right do we follow a holy and a perfect God our Savior was he perfect I know people stumble and worry about that perfection because none of us feels worthy but don't ever forget we are following a perfect example and we should be growing more and more to be like him go forward without stumbling we must have the assurance at the hand of an all-powerful will hold us up an infinite piety will be exercised towards us we fall so that's encouraging if we fall God has infinite pity towards us God alone can at times hear our cry for help it's only God that will hear us at those times and that was one fall that you should deliberately perform that will help prevent the fatal fall the Bible says that we must fall upon Christ and we will be broken Peter went out of the garden after he denied Christ he went out to the Garden of Gethsemane he fell on his face and he wept bitterly Matthew 21 44 whoever falls on this stone will be broken but on whoever it falls it will grind him to powder if we cast ourselves on Christ if we fall upon Christ and we completely surrender to him that's what gives us the strength and the power to keep from falling I remember reading about the great blundin he was the greatest of the tightrope walkers and and the Karen and I were recently at Niagara Falls and he was the first one who walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope and he did some amazing things he they don't even know how many times he walked across Niagara because he did it so many different ways and he did so many different theatric variations of it once he did it in a wheelbarrow once he pushed someone across in a wheelbarrow once he carried a man across Niagara Falls on his back by the way he started tightrope walking when he was 5 years old and he was just so gifted at in his balance he once went across it on stilts he carried his manager Henry Colcord on his back one time always saw this was a great sermon illustration he walked across Niagara Falls there are crowds at both ends watching him and he said to the waiting crowd how many of you believe that I could cross again with a man on my back and everyone said we believe we believe he said who will get on my back nobody believed that much actually his manager that's when he got on his back one time he went across he stopped Midway he sat down he cooked an omelette and ate it once he was crossing he brought a chair with him he stopped halfway across and he sat on the chair with only two legs of the chair on the rope this guy was amazing you know what's the most amazing thing usually people that tempt fate like that don't die of old age he was 74 and he did not die from falling from a rope someone asked him one time don't you get nervous when you're walking across the Niagara Falls or one of these great precipices and you see the raging water down there and the steam and the power of it all and the wind starts to blow and he said no I says those things never scare me says I don't look at all of that said before I cross a chasm says I fix a Silver Star at the opposite end and they said I keep my eyes on the star and I know if I do that all I've got to do is put one foot in front of another because the Rope is straight and you know that's the secret to avoiding a fall is we keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus amen he is able to keep us from falling so two things I want you to remember one if you fall don't stay down a man was talking to a fisherman that was sitting on the dock one day and he asked the fisherman he said if I fell in here when I drowned and the fisherman knew he was really asking how deep the water was but he said fallen in doesn't drown anybody he said staying under is what drowns him so if you fall don't stay down get back up again amen God will take your hand when Peter fell because he took his eyes off Jesus as soon as he reached out his hand Jesus took his hand he'll lift you back up again don't do anything to make anyone else fall and then keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus amen and you will make it to the other side we're gonna sing about how to walk with the Lord just when I need him most I invite you to stand as we sing our closing hymn that's 5:12 in your hymnals words should also be on the screen [Music] just what I need him Jesus is near [Music] [Applause] [Music] just [Music] Jesus is [Music] sister [Music] now before we sing the last verse as they turn on my microphone you know I thought that there may be something want to respond today you may have some special needs or maybe you feel like you know I fall and I'm having trouble getting up and I'd like to ask the Lord to take my hand or you're afraid that you're stumbling along the way and you just are looking for God's grace maybe there's some you realize I've been hanging too close to the edge of the church and I want to be in the middle of God's will if you have some special need and got spoken to you today you want to come forward during our closing prayer I invite you to come together as we sing verse 4 [Music] [Music] last words in this last verse tenderly watching lest they should fall that's why I picked this song praise the Lord anyone else when I come for special prayer before we close father in heaven we are so thankful you are a merciful God that if we do fall that you will reach out your hand that we can turn back to you some of us have fallen out of a church because perhaps we were too close to the edge but you can perform a resurrection I pray that we'll also take careful warning today not to presume upon your grace some never recover from their fall I pray that you'll teach us what it means to look to Jesus the one who is able to keep us from falling that you will strengthen our feet in our walk with you Lord bless this church that we might grow in our faith and be witnesses to all around us thank you we praise you pray for your presence to be with us through this Sabbath day we pray all these things in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Aaron

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Id: EFMraH0o5gk

Length: 56min 14sec (3374 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 28 2018