The Sins of the Saints by Nick
Batzig Bernard of Clairvaux once mentioned an old man who, upon
hearing about any professing Christian who fell into sin,
would say to himself, he fell today, I may fall tomorrow. The
Apostle Paul commended the same mindset when he wrote, let anyone
who thinks that he stands, take ye lest he fall. There is great
wisdom in not trusting our own ability to stand. When I was
a boy, my father would often say, the person I trust least
of all is myself. It should shock us to hear a
professing Christian say, I would never do that, or how could anyone
do that? Consider the following. If Adam,
an innocent man, could choose a piece of fruit over the infinitely
valuable God. If Noah, the most righteous man
of his day, could get so drunk that he passed out naked before
his sons in his tent. If Abraham, the most faithful
man of his day, could father a child with his wife's handmaiden
and twice try to hand his wife over to other men. If Sarah,
the mother of promise, could laugh at the words of the god
of promise and then lie to him about doing so. If Righteous
Lot could greedily pick the most materialistic and sexually depraved
place for himself and his family to live and could hand his daughters
over to the sexually perverse men of the city. If Isaac, the
son of promise, could show partiality to his oldest son because he
liked his hunting skills, and he, too, could hand his wife
over to another man. And if Jacob, the namesake of
Israel, could swindle his brother for a birthright, then so could
I. If Moses, the meekest man on
the planet, could act in such sinful anger and unbelief that
God would not let him into the promised land. If his successor
Joshua could disobediently covenant with pagans, if Gideon, the mighty
man of valor, could fall into idolatry at the end of his life,
and if Samson, the strongest man who ever lived, could be
defeated by wine and women, then so could I. If David, the man
after God's own heart, could commit adultery and premeditate
the murder of one of his mighty men, If Solomon, the wisest man,
could foolishly allow his heart to be led astray by a thousand
women to worship foreign gods. If Jeremiah, the weeping prophet,
could charge God with deceiving his people. And if Elijah, a
prophet of Israel, could self-righteously run from the mission of God,
then so could I. If John the Baptist, the forerunner
of Christ, could doubt the identity of the one to whom he bore witness,
and if the apostle Peter could try to stop Jesus from going
to the cross, deny Jesus, argue with the Lord about the gospel
and its implications, and support division in the church over the
doctrine of justification by faith alone, then so could I. If James and John could use Jesus
to get to the top and want to call fire down from heaven on
those who did not believe the gospel, and if the apostle John
could twice fall down to worship angels, then so could I. We must resist the temptation
of thinking that we can stand in our own strength. We must
depend on the grace of the one who said, apart from me, you
can do nothing. The greatest believers are subject
to great weaknesses. In no way do these truths give
a license to sin. Instead, they give us a sober
realization that by nature, nothing good dwells in us. We must distrust
ourselves, bear with the weak, and hold fast to Christ. We must
flee to our great High Priest, who is tempted in all points
as we are, yet never sinned. We must go to Him for grace and
mercy to withstand temptations, and we must go to Him for grace
and mercy if we fall. Therefore, let anyone who thinks
that he stands take heed lest he fall. By the grace of God,
I am what I am.