The following message was delivered
on Sunday morning, October 16, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Psalm 37 and verse 23. A man's goings are established
of the Lord, and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he
shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with
his hand." Now let us again seek the face of God and ask the aid
of God's Holy Spirit as we seek to understand his own word of
truth. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you that
with the psalmist we have made our confession in the singing
of those words that your word is settled in heaven. And we
thank you that we come this morning to a certain word embodied in
the very words of scripture. And yet we very keenly feel our
present need of the present ministry of the Holy Spirit not to give
us additional revelation, but, O Lord, to grant us illumination
with respect to the revelation already given and deposited in
this blessed book. We pray with the psalmist open,
undress our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of
your law, and we pray that this day the very Spirit who spoke
this word through the psalmist will be present in this place,
enabling us to understand that word and to make due and proper
application of it to our own lives. that each one, from the
youngest to the oldest, from those who sit here, strangers
to your grace, to the most mature saint, that not a one will leave
without knowing what it is that you, the living God, have said
to his heart through your word. Grant us this desire of our hearts,
we plead, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The people of this congregation,
for approximately three and a half months, morning and evening,
with but an exception of two and a half Lord's Days, heard
this question. Are you for real? And that question was used as
the framework to engage in a very concentrated season of self-examination
in the life of this congregation. In 23 messages, I was seeking
to help us all to obey the very clear injunction of 2 Corinthians
13 and verse 5 to examine ourselves, to prove ourselves, to see whether
indeed we were in the faith. And many in this congregation
have borne witness that God has had deep dealings with their
own hearts through this series of sermons, and that they now
possess a more firm and a more well-grounded assurance than
they have ever known before. And it is for just such saints,
those who came to the Word of God with that openness and preparedness
to have the Word of God judge their professed experience, willing
to be shown that it was spurious, if indeed it were a spurious
experience, But having come through such a season, and having sought
to assess what they are in the light of the Word of God, and
having come to the fresh conviction that yes, by the grace of God
they are, for real, it is to just such people that I felt
it would be a matter of biblical balance to bring several messages,
opening up texts of encouragement to these tried and tested saints
before launching into our verse-by-verse expositions in the first epistle
of Peter. Well, last week we considered
that marvelous statement embedded in the prayers of the apostle
for the Philippian church, namely Philippians 1 and verse 6, being
confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good
work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of
Jesus Christ. Now this morning I want to direct
your attention to another such text, one which contains the
choicest comforts and encouragement to those who are for real, for
those who have indeed come through the narrow gate and are walking
upon that restricted or that compressed way which alone leads
unto life. And that text is Psalm 37 and
verse 24. Though he fall, he shall not
be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. Now by way of responsibly taking
up the text, let me address very briefly two introductory concerns. First, a brief word concerning
the 37th Psalm in general. It is one of those several psalms
in the Psalter that is called both an acrostic psalm and along
with many others, a didactic psalm. in this particular psalm
with just a couple of abnormalities every other verse begins with
another letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order as I said with
but a couple of abnormalities and the more knowledgeable commentators
have sought to figure out the rationale for those abnormalities
and I leave it to them to debate that issue But like so many of
those acrostic songs, it is primarily a didactic song. There is little
in this psalm that would precipitate direct engagement of the heart
in the worship of God in the language of the text itself. Unlike many of the psalms that
one cannot pick them up without immediately having his heart
directed into personal communion with the living God, This psalm
is a teaching psalm. It has many things about it that
one would think it was taken out of the book of Proverbs.
So just those few words with reference to the matter of this
psalm in general, its theme is quite clear. It is a constant
contrast between the security and blessedness of the righteous
on the one hand, and the insecurity and the foreboding prospects
of the wicked on the other and just a very cursory reading of
the psalm will validate that that is indeed its major theme
but then secondly I want to say just a word concerning who is
in focus in our text verse 24 we have someone referred to Though
he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds
him with his hand." Now, of whom is the psalmist writing? Well,
obviously, this is one of the parts of the psalm in which he
is speaking of a dimension of the blessedness which God has
promised for the righteous. In verse 16, the very term, the
righteous, is used. Better is a little that the righteous
half. than the abundance of many wicked. Again in verse 17, but the Lord
upholds the righteous. And in verse 21, the righteous
deals graciously and gives. And so here in verse 24, the
Spirit of God is obviously focusing upon one of the many blessings
that God has promised to His righteous ones, the one described
earlier in the psalm as the man who trusts in the Lord, the one
who delights in the Lord, the one who finds it his joy to commit
his way unto the Lord, who rests in the Lord. And we could go
through the psalm and call out these many manifestations of
the character of a righteous man. Someone who has, in the
New Testament language with which we have been working in recent
weeks, someone who by the grace of God has come through the narrow
gate of true, of sound biblical conversion and is found upon
that restricted way which leads unto life. Now having taken care
of those matters of the general thrust and content and nature
of the psalm and who it is that is in focus in verse 24, I want
us now to park in this text as a word of encouragement to tried
and to tested saints. Those who perhaps in seasons
of great searching of heart have indeed wondered in recent weeks,
is the root of the matter in me? And yet through all those
wrestlings you have come to the conviction, yes, if I deny that
the root of the matter is in me, I actually cast aspersions
upon the gracious work of God, obviously wrought in my own heart
in getting me through the narrow gate, in putting me upon and
keeping me on that restricted way which leads to life. To you
I speak this morning from this text, and we'll consider it under
its very obvious divisions we have first of all the condition
envisioned though he fall and then we have the promise imparted
he shall not be utterly cast down and then we have the explanation
provided for the Lord upholds him with his hand First of all,
then, the condition envisioned. The righteous man is in the focus
of the psalmist's mind, and yet the condition envisioned in our
text is one in which this truly righteous man, this man who is
for real, experiences what the psalmist calls a fall. though he fall. Although the pattern of the righteous
man's walk is the way in which God himself delights, according
to verse 23b, and he, that is, Jehovah, delights in the way
of the righteous man, This man whose way, the overall pattern
of his life, is one that reflects that God is wrought in him a
true work of grace, it is yet this man who undergoes what the
psalmist describes as a fall. Now the $64 question is, what
did the psalmist mean when he said, in envisioning this condition,
though he fall, Well, when we turn to our Bibles and look at
the word itself, fall, we see that it's the most general word
used for falling in the Hebrew text. We find it early in Genesis. You'll remember that when the
Lord expressed his displeasure at the offering of Cain, that
it is said he was angry and his countenance fell. It's the very
word used to describe of someone falling into a deep sleep. It is used with reference to
people falling upon their faces, or the fear of God falling upon
men. It is used in a broad spectrum
of ways in the Old Testament. So then we say, well, if the
use of the particular word does not give us a clue as to what
the psalmist has in mind, then is there something in the immediate
context which does? And alas, as we look at the immediate
context, though there might be a suggestion in the overall contrast
between the righteous and the wicked, and we might be warranted
to say that the fall of the righteous is the falling into calamities
which may seem to indicate upon first glance that he is not living
under the canopy of divine blessing, The kind of falling into manifold
trials, to use the language of James in James 1 and verse 3,
when he says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into
manifold trials. Yet that's only a suggestion
drawn from the larger context of the psalm, and the issue really
cannot be determined from that context, and so we are left to
what we call the analogy of scripture. Is there a general teaching of
the Bible itself that does not contradict the language of the
text, but is perfectly consistent with the language of the text
and the overall teaching of the Word of God? And my thesis this
morning is that there is such a general, overall teaching of
the Word of God, perfectly consistent with the language of the text,
and that is that our passage could indeed be referring to
a specific kind of fall that is of a most grievous nature
to the truly righteous man, namely a fall into sin And this very
word, fall, is used in conjunction with being overcome by sin of
one sort or another in Proverbs 11.5, Proverbs 22.14, and in
Jeremiah 8 and verse 4. So one is not wrenching the word
out of its usage in other settings, and in a parallel passage we
have a very general statement, Psalm 145 and verse 14, which rather than again limiting
the sense of fall to some specific aspect of a providential trial,
is general. 145 14 the Lord upholds all that
fall and raises up all those that are bowed down so here in
the Hebrew parallelism the fall is something which makes a man
to be bowed down and again that could not only be trials in general
but that which is the greatest of all trials to a true believer
And that is a fall into sin. And surely when we turn to the
scriptures with the question, is it possible for someone clearly
designated in the Bible as a righteous man, to fall into a specific
sin, a sin of the most grievous nature, and still be clearly
identified as a righteous man, the answer of the Bible is clear
throughout the Old and the New Testaments. I give you but a
sampling God could say of Noah in the generation that so precipitated
his wrath and grief and anger that he obliterates the entire
generation save Noah and his family. He could say of Noah
in Genesis 6 and verse 7 these words which clearly identify
him as a righteous man. Chapter 6, I'm sorry, and verse
9. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a righteous man, and
blameless in his generations, Noah walked with God. Noah was the real thing. He was for real. And yet the
scriptures record in Genesis 9 verses 20 and 21 that this
blameless man who walked with God, righteous in his generation,
is the man who fell into drunkenness and into shameful nakedness. Now he was not a drunkard as
a pattern of life. He was not a flasher as a pattern
of life. But he grievously fell into the
sin of drunkenness and shameful nakedness. And yet God did not
rewrite his estimation of Noah, a righteous man. and blameless
in his generation who walked with God. Abraham, father of
the faithful, the great example of conquering faith, as he is
set before us in Romans chapter 4, who, considering his own body
as good as dead in the deadness of Sarah's womb, he was not weakened
through unbelief, but waxed strong in faith, giving glory to God
that what he had promised he was able to perform. a man of
tremendous courage just recently in my Old Testament reading or
listening through the Old Testament Abraham going out like a warrior
with his 318 servants and taking on what was probably a far greater
number of men tremendous man of courage and yet yet Abraham
is set before us as the man who at least on two occasions fell
into the sin of dishonesty, unbelief, and carnal expediency. In Genesis
16, at the suggestion of his wife, he takes the house servant
as his wife to produce the seed to help God rather than to wait
upon God to fulfill the promise through his legitimate God-given
wife, Sarah. Later on, we find him in that
situation with the Bimelech, where he lies about the identification
of Sarah, not only showing unbelief in God's ability to keep him,
but exposing his wife's virtue to the loss of a pagan ruler. That's Abraham, father of the
faithful. Abraham, whose nobility in Genesis
22 shames us all when God says, take your son, your only son
Isaac, whom you love, and offer him in the place that I will
show you. And there's no indication that
there's any tickering with God, any arguing with God. He would
be less than human if he did not have deep, tumultuous struggles
of soul. But he plants his feet in the
path of obedience. Abraham, who goes out not knowing
where he is going. Abraham, a righteous man, who
has a pattern of life, lives a life of faith, a life of courage,
a life of confidence in God. Yet, he falls into the sin of
unbelief. He falls into the sin of cowardice. he falls into the sin of a shameful
exposure of his wife's virtue for the sake of sparing his own
neck if they know you're my wife you're a beautiful woman they'll
kill me to get you say you're only the sister and she ends
up in that man's bedroom and only the powerful restraining
hand of God keeps him from consummating the relationship At that point,
I tell you, Abraham's no knight in shining armor. He's a shameful
coward. God records his fall. David,
the man after his own heart, and all of the ways that he is
manifestly a man who is a righteous man, a man of faith, a man of
courage, a man of deep sensitivity. He does one little secret act
of shaming the king by cutting off a square inch of his robe
and it says his heart smolders. He had no peace till he made
full confession to Saul, the man who was out chasing him as
though he were some common felon seeking to take his life. Yet
it is this David who commits the shameful sins of wanton adultery,
murder, duplicity. He commits the shameful sins
of presumption. He is a man who is in the way. He is a righteous man, and yet
he is a man such as we have described in our text, though he falls. And when we come to the New Testament
before and after Pentecost, the picture is no different. There's
Peter saying, this other crowd, they may be weak enough to deny
you, Lord, but not me. Though all others forsake you,
I'm prepared to die. And the scripture tells us that
under the pressure of the little servant girl, He binds himself
with solemn oaths and maledictions. He brings down curses and oaths
upon himself if he knows anything of Jesus of Nazareth, cowardice
in Peter the Rock. And after Pentecost, he's not
really white all the way through the book of Acts. His prejudice
against Gentile dogs is so deeply ingrained that God not only has
to give a vision out of heaven but repeat it two more times
to get it into his skull that you must go and minister the
word in the house of this Gentile man, Cornelius. But that wasn't
the end of it. We come to Galatians chapter
1 and find Paul saying, I had to withstand my fellow apostle
to his face. because he was sitting and socializing
with Gentiles until the Judaizers came and then he split and he
would only hobnob and socially find himself involved with the
Jewish Christians Barnabas, son of consolation The man who had
much more of a breadth of exposure to Gentiles in his background
from his origins and from his ministerial experience, the Scripture
says Barnabas was carried away with his dissimulation. Peter
was not only guilty of the sin of ongoing prejudice, but he
was a stumbling block to that godly man Barnabas. He fell. He fell. And when we turn to
the epistles, we see true Christians falling into the most grievous
kinds of sins in the epistles of the Corinthians. For the subsequent
history of the man who is in focus in 1 Corinthians 5 is clear. That man showed that the root
of the matter was in him by his subsequent repentance. But he
fell into the sin of an incestuous relationship. and there in that
church that was the darling of Paul's heart from which we took
our text last week and I imagine it must have been a very very
tense moment when as Paul has written the epistle and one of
the elders or readers that given Lord's Day is reading that epistle
to the people and all of a sudden a special word is coming to these
two prominent ladies named Iodia and Synthetae Maybe as their
names are first mentioned, they sit up and preen themselves thinking
we're going to get some commendation. And then the blush begins to
creep up the back of their neck and into their ears and across
their cheeks where he says, I beseech Yodia and Sintichi to be of the
same mind in the Lord. Here were women of eminence who
had fallen into the petty sins of cattiness, apparently some
kind of perhaps rivalry, disagreement of the best way to exercise the
kind of benevolent ministries for which Darcus was known. We
don't know what the specifics were. But you see, the Bible
does not hide from us the reality that truly righteous men and
women can fall into sin. And therefore, as we take up
our text this morning, under this first heading, the condition
envisioned, I'm asserting that the condition envisioned in our
text is that of a righteous one who yet falls who falls into
sin, who may fall into grievous sin, who may fall into shameful
sin, who may fall into sins the consequences of which may unfold
for generations to come as in the case of Abraham and David
and of Noah. and the chastisement of which
may send a man to his graves crippled and scarred but still righteous men who have
fallen. Now dear people, the same Bible
from which I sought to extract the standards by which to press
you to ask yourself the question, am I for real? That Bible that
showed us the marks of the true sheep of Christ in John 10. showed
us the marks of the true circumcision in Philippians 3. That same Bible
that showed us from Romans 8 that there are only two realms of
moral existence, flesh or spirit. That same Bible from which we
saw the nature of that narrow gate through which a man or woman
must pass if he is ever to end up in the consummate glories
of eternal life. And that compressed, restricted,
narrow way upon which one must walk, the same Bible from which
those materials were called, is the Bible that records this
condition in which a righteous man may fall, and may fall grievously. But then notice, secondly, the
promise imparted. Not only is our text set before
us the condition envisioned, a righteous man falling, but
we have the promise imparted, he shall not be utterly cast
down. Now the words Utterly cast down
are an attempt to translate one Hebrew word. Some have rendered
it shall not be cast off. Others will not fall. Others
shall not be prostrated. It's the same word used in a
couple of familiar historical records that even the kids will
pick up on immediately. You all know the story of Jonah.
And you remember when the great sea was turbulent because of
God's displeasure with his disobedient prophet? And finally the mariners
single out Jonah and they know that he's the culprit bringing
this impending danger upon them. And Jonah acknowledges it and
he says in Jonah 1 in verse 12, cast me into the sea. And all will be well in verse
15 says they cast him into the sea. That's our word. The promise
imparted he shall not be utterly cast away, cast out, abandoned. And it's the word used in the
familiar story of Saul's devilish horrible jealousy against David,
and David comes in to play his harp, you remember, and Saul
grabs his javelin, probably with his right hand, I instinctively
grab mine with my left, and he seeks to pin David against the
wall within it, and the scripture tells us in 1 Samuel 18.11 that
he cast his javelin, or his spear, at David, that's the same word,
You see, the sense of the word is clear. It expresses the promise
of God that even though the true child of God falls, and grievously
and shamefully falls, he will not be cast out and cast off
by his God. He will not be abandoned. He will not be thrown out of
the circle of God's love. and of his keeping power. He
will not be thrown down and prostrate, held captive by that sin so as
to be cast out of the way of holiness as the pattern of his
life. Surely the New Testament counterpart
of this promise is Romans 6.14. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. God nowhere said that sin may
not have a temporary conquest in you. A sin shall not have
dominion over you. Conquest? Yes! Peter, Satan has
desired you to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that
your faith fail not. And when you have turned again,
indicating sin will have a temporary conquest in you, but it will
not be able to regain its lordship over you when you have turned
again, strengthen your brethren. And the promise imparted in our
text to every tried and tested child of God is this, though
you fall, And the condition envisioned becomes your own condition, and
you know that you have fallen. It may not be into grievous sin
that the whole world will know about eventually. It may be a
secret sin, but an area which to you is very clearly a manifestation
of everything you repudiated at the narrow gate, and everything
you're pursuing on the compressed way. and you fall. What is God's word to you? Though
you fall, you shall not be utterly cast down. You shall not be utterly
cast off, cast out, cast away. And now I know unprincipled men
may greatly abuse such words, but In 2 Corinthians chapter
1 we are told this very wonderful thing by the apostle and we must
allow no potential abuse of any part of the Word of God, any
promise of the Word of God to keep us from this that is our
blood-bought heritage. Second Corinthians 118, but as
God is faithful, our word to you is not yea and nay. We do not come with a gospel
that affirms and then the moment you begin to reach out to take
what is affirmed, we pull it back and say no, our gospel is
not a gospel of yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and
Timothy, was not yea and nay, but in Him is yea, or yes. Now notice, for how many so ever
be the promises of God, in Him is the yes, wherefore through
Him is the amen, unto the glory of God through us. And my own
understanding of this passage is that shared by most of the
commentators that I have read. God is saying, how many soever
are His promises. Ultimately, every promise ever
given to any saint in any epoch of redemptive history was a promise
given on the crowns that Christ would be in space-time history,
the Redeemer of His people, the actual purchaser of all their
blessings, But in the mind and reckoning of God he was the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. Jesus said, Abraham
saw my day and he was glad, he rejoiced. And therefore all of
God's promises in Christ Jesus, they come to us with God's yes. And when they are received by
faith in the heart of the believer, we answer with our amen. So be it. Let it be so in me. And when God's yes in gospel
promises is answered by our amen of faith, God is glorified. And so God comes to us with a
promise. He envisions this condition.
The righteous man falls. Though he fall, here is the marvelous
promise that is imparted. He shall not be cast out. He shall not be utterly cast
away. Chastised with crippling, lifelong,
scarring chastisements as in the case of David. Yes, chastised
with grief to unborn generations in terms of the progeny of that
incestuous relationship when Noah fell into drunkenness and
incest with his own daughters. Yes, but not cast away. Not cast away. Then we come thirdly,
having looked at the condition envisioned, though he fall, the
promise imparted, he shall not be utterly cast down, the explanation
provided, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. That's the rendering of the 1911,
that in the margin, or upholdeth his hand. Those of you who have the New
King James will notice that the words, him with, are in italics,
indicating that they are not words that are there in a literal
rendering, a formal equivalent rendering of the Hebrew. The
old authorized version, New King James version, has the words
in italics. Now if it is a case where responsible
translation should supply the words, It teaches a marvelous
truth confirmed in many other portions of the word of God.
That though the true child of God may fall, he is not utterly
cast down, cast out, cast away, cast down so as never to rise
again. Why? The explanation provided
is the Lord upholds him with capital H, with his hand. Jehovah, the Great I Am, God
of the Covenant, God who in sovereign grace and mercy made the man
a righteous man in the first place, when having set His love
upon him in eternity in Christ, in time He sent His Son to die
for him. In the life history of that man
or woman, boy or girl, in conjunction with the gospel, He arrested
him and brought him through the gate and planted his feet upon
the way, bound himself to that believer in bonds of shared life,
the same spirit who dwells in the believer dwells in his own
son. And it is that, according to
Romans 8, among other things, which will even secure the resurrection
of his body, the whole triune God is committed to this unrighteous
man made a righteous man or woman by the grace of God. And it is
a truth taught everywhere in scripture that the ultimate rationale,
the ultimate explanation provided for why, though a righteous man
falls, he is not utterly cast down, is that God is committed
to his preservation, and therefore God upholds him with his hand. That truth is taught in verse
17 of this very psalm. The arms of the wicked shall
be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. And you have that
marvelous promise in Isaiah 41.10. It's the last passage that I
had the privilege of reading to our dear sister, Marjorie
Nixon, several days before she went into the presence of her
Lord. Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for
I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee. And notice, it is not strength
and help from afar. I will uphold thee with the right
hand of my righteousness. It's one thing for someone to
stand the other side of the ditch into which I've fallen and say,
I'm going to help you, buddy. Help's coming. Sure going to
help you. Going to get you out. I say,
man, stop talking and give me your hand. Give me something
to grab on to. And God not only says, I will
strengthen, I will help, but He says, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. Now, that's the truth taught
here. It's a marvelous truth. But I do not believe there's
any necessity to add the words and that the more literal rendering
is the mind of the Spirit of God in this passage. And it's
not my independent opinion. Dalish argues very convincingly
for it in his commentary and several others that I've consulted.
And this is how it reads. This is the explanation provided.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, cast out,
cast away, slung out like a javelin from the hand of the athlete. No, for the Lord upholds small
h, his hand. The hand of whom? The hand of
the one who has fallen. And Dalich comments accordingly. The Lord upholds His hand, affords
it a firm point of support or fulcrum so that the believer
who has fallen can raise himself again, can rise up again. And isn't that precisely what
the Lord said to Peter in the passage already alluded to, Luke
22, 31? Satan has desired you to sift you as wheat, that I
have prayed for you, and when, and we have the standard word
for conversion, epistrepho, and we have an aorist active participle,
having turned again, not a passive participle, having been turned,
but Peter having turned again, Peter would be conscious and
active and involved in his spiritual restoration. And when we read
the account of that restoration, you'll remember it's when he
stayed within close enough proximity to his Lord in the hours of his
trial that it was one loving, languid, piercing, yet gentle
look from Christ. that broke his heart and sent
him out to weep bitterly. And a few days later, by the
shore of the lake, the Lord Jesus singles him out, and He begins
to probe him and, as it were, negate one by one his three denials
with the threefold affirmation of His love and His recommissioning
of His servant to feed His lambs, to shepherd His sheep, and to
feed His sheep. And therefore I see no necessity
In terms of the analogy of scripture to add the words but to let the
text speak as it speaks, what is the explanation provided for
the fact that though the righteous man fall, he is not utterly cast
down? The answer is Jehovah. the great I Am, the triune God
manifesting His grace in the economy of redemptive provision
in Christ and by the Holy Spirit. He, this great God, upholds the
hand of that fallen believer. And trying to think of a picture
that would convey this accurately, at least somewhat accurately,
I thought of the experience that has been part of my life for
many, many years. Being the second oldest of ten
children, I had the joy of being like second daddy. I'll never
forget the first time someone asked me if one of my kid brothers,
when I took him out for a walk, was my kid. And I very humbly
said, ah, nah, he's just my kid brother. But boy, down underneath,
I felt I'd made it. Someone thought I was a daddy.
and so being the older brother to all the younger kids and then
being part of this church over the years where the couples have
babies like old time Catholics always, always kids around and
this is experience every father, every big brother anyone who's
alert to little kids around will have a kid is just beginning
to get the feeling of his pins and he wants the independence
of being able to walk alone so in a well padded carpeted living
room you may sit down on the floor a few feet away and tease
him or her to come and they do that funny little walk that they
do getting their legs out and they make it and then everyone
cheers and they're the little hero or heroine and just as they're
beginning to get their pins and they feel some of that independence
when you go outside into places where there's much more danger
than in the well carpeted domestic situation of the living room
you take the child's hand you may just grab the wrist as a
safety measure and the little fellas walking along and you're
holding him by the hand rather loosely but nonetheless you've
got his hand he thinks he's doing it all on his own but if his
feet slip and he starts going face first into the pavement
what do you do? you tighten your grip and instead of being utterly
cast down where he'd end up skinning his nose splitting his forehead
open you enable him to do what? Not to pick him up so his legs
just flail and carry him off somewhere. He doesn't want that.
He's walking now. And you grab him firmly until
he gets his pins underneath him again and he's able to walk on
his own. I think that's something of the
picture in the text. Here is the man who is walking
in the way of righteousness. His heart is set upon marking
out his life by the precepts of the Lord. But then he grievously
starts to fall, and if that fall could have its ultimate end,
apart from the intervention of God, he'd be utterly out on the
pavement. And what does God do? He upholds
his hand. And by taking his hand enables
the child of God to get back into the way of holiness, the
way of obedience, the way of communion with his heavenly Father. For you see, the one who holds
his hand has a hold on the entirety of the body of the one who has
fallen. And the rationale given for this
marvelous promise, though he fall, he shall not be utterly
cast down, cast out, cast away, is that Jehovah himself upholds
his hand. He holds his hand not to give
him good feelings, but to keep him from spiritual shipwreck
and disaster. I have prayed for you, Peter! That is the hand of Christ that
will not let his oath-taking, cursing child utterly and totally
fall away from him. And so in summary, I say to you
who are tried, and tested saints who have come to a fresh conviction
based upon the word of God and honest dealings with your own
heart in the presence of God, I am not a fake. I'm not a formalist. I am not a ritualist. I'm not
someone who simply tipped my hat to Jesus years ago and that's
been it. No, I have seen that by the grace
of God I've been brought to repudiate at that gate. All righteousness
of my own is the ground of my acceptance. I've repudiated self-will
and self-serving as the pattern of my life. I've repudiated the
reign and the pattern of sin as that which I will live by. I have divorced the world. God
has brought me through the gate. And I am upon the way, the way
of gospel-oriented, Christ-centered efforts to live a life pleasing
to God, knowing that my best and most ardent devotion has
enough sin in it to be worthy of damnation. I'll never change
the ground of my confidence. It's Christ at the gate, Christ
in the first step, Christ in the last step. And with our dying
breath it will be, O God, Accept my departing soul into your presence
for the sake of the righteousness of your Son. And you can say
I'm on that way where I am no longer fundamentally living for
myself, but for Him who loved me and gave Himself for me and
for others. Sin is no longer my delightful
companion, but my greatest burden. and the world is no longer the
strumpet with whom I joyfully and willfully keep tryst and
though she bears her thigh and exposes her cleavage I have divorced
her I am seeking to know what it is to have the cross of Christ
make me utterly crucified to the world and I to the world
the world unto me and I unto the world that's my condition
but at the end of the day if I'm honest I must say Psalm 37,
24 describes me. I fall. And God says to you,
though you fall, you shall not be utterly cast off. And what's
the explanation? It's because the Lord is upholding
your hand, the same Lord who so worked in you that he brought
you through the gate. and has brought you along the
way wherever you may be upon that way is the Lord who is committed
to hold you until he brings you safely into his presence. Now on the basis of the teaching
of that text as I've sought to expound it under those three
simple heads, I want now to bring three simple words of application. Number one, an obvious objection
answered. Some may be sitting here saying,
but Pastor Martin, If I were to teach that, won't people who
have known nothing of coming through the narrow gate and know
nothing of walking upon the compressed way, who have none of those marks
of the new birth delineated by John in his first epistle, won't
they take hold of this and use it as a license for sin and say,
oh, well, if I fall, the Lord won't let me go. I won't be cast
off. He'll hold my hand. Yes. Wicked men will always turn the
grace of God into lasciviousness. Ignorant and unstable people,
Peter says, will always rest and twist the Scriptures to their
own destruction. But listen, if perverse people
want to take the choice bread of God and choke themselves to
death with it, that's their problem. But I want to feed upon it to
the nourishment of my soul. And my dear preacher friends,
never let the potential abuse of the freeness and the certainty
and the efficacious nature of God's grace, never let the freeness
of those blessed commodities be hedged up beyond the Word
of God because of the fear that some may abuse those truths. Paul preached the gospel that
caused people to come along with the devil's logic and say, well,
Paul, if I preached what you preached and believed what you
believed, then everyone would be going around saying, huh,
if where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. Let's continue
in sin that grace may abound. If no one's ever accused your
gospel of being too simple and too easy, you're probably not
preaching the biblical gospel. And if in our reaction against
easy believism and shallow decisionism we feel the answer is to constrict
the freeness of God's grace, no it isn't! That will just make
a bunch of Pharisees to go along with a bunch of hypocrites. And
God knows we don't need more of that. And so we must let God's
word loose in all the freeness and fullness of its graciousness.
Yes, that is an objection. But you see, no Christian desires
to fall. Look at verse 31 of this very
psalm, describing the same righteous man who, though he falls, shall
not be utterly cast down. He doesn't desire to fall. He
doesn't, in that sense, plot, oh well, I can fall here and
fall here, and in every instance, God will take me by the hand.
No, the law of God is in his heart. None of his steps shall
slide. In other words, because God has
put His law within his heart, he has a disposition to universal
obedience. He can say with the Apostle Paul,
I delight in the law of God after my inward man. And when he reads
1 John 2.1, My little children, these things I write unto you,
that you may not sin. He says, Oh God, wouldn't that
be true? That's what I want with all of
my being. But if any man sins, though he
fall, he will not be utterly cast out. At the point of his
sin, he has an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the
Righteous One. Someone says, well, how will
I know if God's really holding my hand unless I fall? How will
I know my dad's really got me unless I stumble on the sidewalk?
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. That's the very breath
of the tempter who came to our Lord, saying, if you are what
you claim to be, and what you say your Father says you are
from heaven and the waters of Jordan, throw yourself down! Hasn't he promised? He'll give
his angels charge over thee. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God. And when you hear in your ear
those words, oh well, you're a true Christian, then put God
to the test. Fall, fall into some grievous,
shameful sin. Do what Noah did. Do what David
did. Do what Abraham did. And prove
that God has really got his hand upon you. My friend, you are
tempting God. And it would be right in such
cases for God to abandon you and let you become an utterly
miserable, shameful apostate. So the objection doesn't wash.
For the true child of God, He will not turn this precious promise
into a license for sin. And that leads me, secondly,
a needful exhortation issued. Not only would I answer an objection
growing out of this text, but I'd issue a needful exhortation.
Dear children of God, as you go on in the restricted way,
learn how to use these promises of God. I deeply appreciate and
I tell people wherever I preach, there's no group of people that
I find more joy in preaching to than you dear people here.
Anyplace else is a way, this is home. But you see, it's not
enough that you listen eagerly. Some of you take careful notes
and even use the notes as part of your devotions. You've got
to take what you hear and learn how to turn it into sharp swords
of the Spirit with which to fight Apollyon. You remember, and I
went back in my preparation to that incident in Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress. It was while he was in the narrow
way, he hadn't turned aside, that there Apollyon straddles
the way. This encounter with the devil
is not something that came as a chastisement. The devil's initiative
brought him into contact with Christian. And you remember he's
angry that he's lost one of his subjects. He said, it isn't right,
you belong to me. And I love Christian's answer.
He said, well, I promised you allegiance when I was a little
kid, didn't know what I was doing. Called it my knowledge. Besides,
I count the Prince, capital P, under whose banner I now stand,
is able to absolve me and to pardon me, even in terms of my
compliance with you. And to tell you the truth, Apollyon,
I like his service, his wages, his servants, his government,
his company, and his country better than yours. Ah, that's
a true Christian speaking. I like the service of my new
master. His wages, his servants, his
government, his company, his country. Therefore, leave off
to persuade me further. I am his servant. I will follow
him. And Apollyon says, do you know what you're saying? And
then he begins to threaten him, begins to bring up horror stories
to try to scare him. And then Apollyon knows how to
get to him. He reminds him of his past falls. Listen, Apollyon, did you not
faint in your first setting out when you were almost choked in
the Gulf of Despond? And did you not attempt wrong
ways to be rid of your burden, whereas you should have waited
till your prince had taken it off? Remember when he came to
hill legality? Did you not sinfully sleep and
lose your choice things? Remember he lost his role when
he slept in the arbor? Oh, the devil knew how to remind
him of his falls. You were almost persuaded to
go back at the sight of the lions. Lack of faith and courage, Abraham's
sin. And when you talk of your journey
and of what you have seen and heard, you're in with these desirous
of vain glory and all that you say or do. The devil reminds
him of his past falls. And to that Christian answers,
all this is true and much more that you've left out. I've got a better list in my
own conscience. But the prince whom I serve and
honor is merciful and ready to forgive. But besides, these infirmities
possess me in your country, for there I sucked them in and I've
groaned under them, been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon
of my prince. And at that, Apollyon broke out
into a grievous rage, saying, I'm an enemy to this prince.
I hate his person, his laws, his people. And I've come out
on purpose to withstand you. And then he goes on to describe
that tremendous, furious battle. And just at the point when it
appears Christian has had it, what happens? What happens? Then
Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian
and wrestling with him gave him a dreadful fall. And with that
Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon,
I am sure of you now. And with that he had almost pressed
him to death. So that Christian began to despair
of life. But as God would have it, while
Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, drawing his arm back
to give him the death blow, thereby to make a full end of this good
man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his sword and
caught it, saying, Rejoice not against me, O my enemy! And you
know what text he quotes? The parallel text out of Micah
7.8. When I fall, I shall arise!" Beaten, bleeding, the death rattle
in his throat, he took the sword of the Spirit and with that gave
him a deadly thrust which made him give back his one that had
received his mortal wound. Christian perceiving that, made
at him again, saying, Nay, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us. And with that, Apollyon
spread forth his dragon's wings and sped him away. And Christian
saw him no more. You see, the lesson Bunyan is
imparting to us Yes, the devil, if he does not scruple about
accusing us in the very presence of God, surely he'll accuse us
in the theater of our own conscience and remind us of our faults.
And we need to take a text like Psalm 37, 24, for, though I fall,
I shall not be utterly cast out, for it is Jehovah who holds my
hand. And he illustrates it again very
powerfully in the whole incident when we find that Christian and
his companion had indeed gotten in a situation because of their
sin. Christian and Hopeful got into Doubting Castle. Why? They
were looking for an easier way than the straight and narrow
way. And they saw a way that seemed to run parallel, and they
went through the turnstile. They said, it seems to keep close
by this other way, but it looks so much easier. What's Bunyan
saying? When you start trying to turn
the restricted, constricted, compressed, straightened, pressured
way into an easier way, you're going to be a sitting duck to
end up in deep spiritual trouble. So they end up where? They end
up in Doubting Castle. And what happens? Giant Despair
and his wife Diffidence go to work on them. And they try everything. Even try to get them to commit
suicide. And God gives them enough sense to know, no, that would
be to escape one problem only to bring on an eternal and worse
problem. But what is it that finally brings them out of that
castle? Well, on Saturday about midnight
they began to pray. and continued in prayer till
almost break of day. Now a little before it was day,
good Christian, as one hath amazed, broke out in this passionate
speech. What a fool clothed he am I,
thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty.
I have a key in my bosom called promise, that will I am persuaded
open any lock in doubting castle. Then said Hopeful, that's good
news, good brother! Pluck it out of thy bosom and
try! Then Christian pulled it out
of his bosom and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt,
as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease.
And Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then as he went to
the outward door that leads into the castle yard, and with his
key opened that door also, after he went to the iron gate, for
that must be open too, but that lock went very hard, yet the
key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate
to make their escape with speed, and that gate as it opened made
such a creaking that it waked giant despair, who hastily rising
to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fetch
took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then
they went on, and came to the king's highway again, and so
were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction. And it was one thing that brought
them out, the key of promise. Dear children of God, promises
are just that they are God's pledges of his own commitments
to your salvation and they are meant to be used not done in
beautiful calligraphy and put up on the wall now that helps
you to use them fine but I fear we have more promises in promise
box in them beautiful calligraphy on our walls than we have as
keys in our bosom to pluck out when we feel we are encastled
with doubt and despair here is such a key though he fall he
shall not utterly be cast off for the Lord Jehovah holds his
hand oh dear child of God I exhort you learn to use the promises
in this way and then finally In my application, I've sought
to answer an obvious objection, issue a very needful exhortation. Then I would close with an earnest
entreaty. My unconverted friend, I challenge
you to do something this afternoon. Take just 10 minutes and carefully
read Psalm 37. and put a little tick mark in
a pencil. If you want to underline, it
doesn't bother you to underline the Bible. Underline in red everything
it says about the horrible and precarious place that you are
in outside of Christ. Just in this psalm, see what
it says about you. It says you'll be cut down like
the grass, verse 2. It says that Verse 9, you shall
be cut off. Verse 10, yet a little while
and the wicked shall not be. Verse 13, the Lord will laugh
at you when he sees that your day is coming. Read through the
psalm and see what it says about your frightening, precarious
position as a wicked man, wicked woman, wicked boy, a wicked girl. And realize that everything it
says about the righteous in this passage can be yours, but it
can only be yours in the one in whom all the promises of God
are treasured. And that's the Lord Jesus. And
you've got to get into Christ. And there's no way to get into
Christ but to turn from your sin and to lay hold of Him as
He's offered in the Gospel. Cry to God to give you a revelation
of the mercy and pardon that is freely offered in Christ. Search the Scriptures. Cry to
God. Seek to lay hold of all that
He holds out to every needy sinner in the Gospel. of his dear son. And then you too can have this
as one of the precious, exceeding great and precious promises to
be your companion in the remainder of your journey. Though he fall,
he shall not be utterly cast off, for the Lord holds his hand. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you
for your holy word. Thank you for this blessed promise. And we pray that by the enabling
of the Holy Spirit, every tried and tested saint will lay this
promise to heart. That every babe in Christ who
is indeed your true child, may lay this promise in his or her
bosom. We ask, O God, that in that last
day when we shall be known fully, we pray that it may reveal that
in this day you worked in our hearts a new measure of your
grace by enabling us to understand and take to heart this word of
promise. And for those for whom it is
no word of promise, Lord, make them jealous. We pray they would
be provoked to jealousy to have such a marvelous promise surrounding
them amidst all the uncertainties of life and the certainty of
death and the certainty of judgment. Oh, God, in mercy, arrest them
and draw them to your son. Seal then your word to our hearts.
Continue to bless us throughout this day as we commit ourselves
to you through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.