Maturity No.3 Overcoming Failure

Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. You also were with Jesus of Galilee, she said. But he denied it before them all.

I don't know what you're talking about, he said. Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him, and said to the people there, This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth. He denied it again with an oath.

I don't know the man. After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away. Then he, that is Peter, began to call down curses on himself, and he swore to them, I don't know the man.

Immediately a cock crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken. Before the cock crows, you will disown me three times.

And he went outside and wept bitterly. In this, what happens to be our fourth study, though it says number three on your notes, you remember I missed one, and Dave White has come in with a study, on Christian maturity, we're looking at the subject of overcoming failure. Overcoming failure.

And if I were to pick out of the several topics that I hope to address you on, in this series of Bible studies, as to which was the most important, then I would elect for this. I feel from my own personal experience of the Lord, and from my attempted work as a pastor, that there is no greater stumbling block to Christian people, than the fact of failure. You remember how it is the Apostle Paul, who tells us in Ephesians, a verse that I've quoted on so many occasions, that we are to go on to maturity.

And he suggests as an example, that we make our model the Lord Jesus. And says that we are to get, if you like, as high as he is. To become as mature as he is.

And that seems to us an utter impossibility. And by contrast, many of us have to say, though the life of our Lord Jesus, was such that it bare the closest of inspections, and none could find him guilty at any point, any stain, any blot on his character. When we put ourselves alongside him, we see such an enormous difference.

And as a result, very often, because of our repeated failures, we sometimes come to the conclusion, that it's about time we threw in the towel, and quit this whole charade of claiming to be Christians. I have in my pastoral files, and in memories that are locked up in my mind, examples of many a person, who has come to an end of himself or herself, and has suggested that because they have failed so often, it's about time they just gave up, on this whole Christian enterprise. And it's not just ordinary Christians, in congregations like ours, that stumble at the fact of repetitive failure.

Many and many a missionary, has found this to be a specter, that has haunted him or her. I remember in the 1950's, a book coming out by the name, Through Gates of Splendour. It was written by a man called Jim Elliot, and contained extracts of his diary.

Elliot was to be one of the great missionary pioneers, in Latin America. Ultimately he gave his life, as an Alka Indian spear, was rammed into his heart, along with four other colleagues. But when he was in Latin America, at one time he wrote back home, that if he were an ordinary member of a congregation, supporting a missionary as ineffective, as he Elliot thought himself to be, he would immediately withdraw support.

Elliot felt that he was a failure. I have been looking through, and doing some work on the life of William Carey, that great missionary pioneer, who went off to India, some hundred years ago, and was the first member of the Baptist Missionary Society. He'd been in India for some years.

He'd moved ten miles west of Calcutta. He'd already started to break, some of the Indian dialects in open, so that he could communicate the gospel message, to the Indians. But having been there, and having done so much in such a short space of time, he writes a letter back home, and he pens in his diary, that he feels as fruitless, as a tree that has withered.

Absolute failure, just engulfed Carey, and lost him in a depression, which God in his grace, ultimately brought him out of. And so I could go on, ploughing you with incidents, of people known to me, who would identify, with my basic proposition, that failure is a tremendous stumbling block, for the Christian, often causing him to want to quit. One of the most interesting, missionaries that I have ever met, out in the east, wrote me in a circular letter, about three weeks ago, some sentiments, in which he said, he wished that he could just give up, working for the Lord, in a prominent position, in the city of Bombay.

He felt that his life, was just riddled with, one failure after another. Difficulty in coping as a man, with the problem of lust, difficulty with coping, with the disciplines of Bible reading, and coming before the Lord, in consecutive prayer. A most outstanding man, opening his heart, and saying, that he feels, a failure.

And I'm sure, that many of you, will identify, with the sentiments, of that man, and of illustrations, that I've already given. Let me add one more. I was reading, while I'd been a little unwell, during these last few days.

The life of Arthur W. Pink. Remarkable man, who finished his life, having spent some years, in Hove, and also some years, ministering in the States, and in Australasia. He finished his life, in Stornoway, almost as a recluse.

A brilliant man, editing a magazine, which never had a readership, more than 3,000 people. A man who, towards the end of his life, hardly ever got an invitation, to preach, in any pulpit, in Scotland, or in England. Who seemed to be, an absolute failure.

And yet, his writings, have recently been rediscovered. And I gather, by the publisher's blurb, on the back, that on some of the paperbacks, that have been released, during the last 10 years, 160,000 copies, have been sold. Books printed, since the man died.

His life, seemed to be something, of a failure, that God, in a remarkable fashion, has turned that failure, into a success. One other illustration, I was reading, earlier on today, this slender little volume, of only about 500 pages, a book called, I Believe in Church Growth. And Michael Green, writes the preface of this book.

And he speaks about a church, in the United States of America, where he had been a worshipper. And he says, in the book, that one of the outstanding features, of this particular church, he thought, and one of the reasons, for its success, was this. And I quote, Part of the attraction, of the church, is that it has a strong, doctrine of restoration, as well as salvation.

This is a church, where you can fail, and still come back. I'd like to think, that that describes, also the tabernacle. We are, if you're new to us, let me take the mask away.

We are a congregation, of failures. I probably know more, about most folks, in the congregation, than the majority. And I certainly know, a great deal of my own life.

And when I tell you, that we're a bunch of failures, I am not, in any way, exaggerating. Well, what do we do, at this point, having depressed you, beyond degree? Do we sort of, all go home, close down, the evangelistic witness, next door, and say, well the gospel, has got no effect, no practical consequences, on our lives, whatsoever. Not a bit.

We start to make, now some biblical propositions. And the major one, which I'll keep coming back to, is this. Had it not been the fact, that men, and women, were failures, there would have been, no need for the gospel, at all.

I go further. Had it not been for the fact, that people failed, in Old Testament eras, generations, and also in New Testament times, the major part of our Bible, would not have been written. The prophets, ministered to people, who were going astray.

The ministry of the prophets, was basically, a corrective ministry. The ministry of the apostles, likewise. Had it not been the case, that the people at Corinth, were making such a mess of things, Paul would never have written, the two letters, that bear the names, of those churches, of that church, at the head of the epistles.

The Bible itself, is a book, that is directed, for a readership, of failures. And it's also a book, that deals honestly, with its characters. One of the magnetic things, about the Bible, the reason why, someone like myself, comes back to it, again and again, and I've read the whole thing through, virtually, during the last 14 days, is because it tells us, of men and women, who have weaknesses, like our own.

And we can identify ourselves, with those weaknesses. Don't get Abraham, out of context. He's a great man of God.

He's the friend of God. He's the father of the faithful, of the believing Jews, and of the believing Gentiles. But Abraham, on several occasions, makes an absolute mess of things.

To the extent, that he's indiscreet, in describing his wife, as his half-sister, and putting her own morality, in jeopardy. You can hardly find a person, in the Old Testament, who doesn't have, some outstanding blemish, staring you in the face. And the same is true, of the New Testament.

The only person, who stands out, with pristine purity, and retains the same, throughout the whole of his life, is our blessed Lord Jesus. He is the unsullied, Rose of Sharon. He is the unblemished, Lily of the Valley.

There's no imperfection in Him, but there's imperfection in us. And it was because of our imperfections, that He came into this world. Now what is a Christian? Well, a Christian, as you know, is a partaker of the divine nature.

That means to say, that there's a little bit of Jesus, putting this in the most simple, theological terms possible, that resides in him or her. But at the point of entry, into the Christian faith, the Christian does not become perfect. I go further.

At the point of exit from this world, the Christian is not perfect. Most of us go from one failure, to another failure. And sometimes we feel, extremely miserable about it.

The Christian life is a challenge. It's a challenge to do battle with the devil. It's a challenge to avoid the traps, that He puts in our way.

And blessed be God, there is through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit, the possibilities of our failures, becoming more and more spaced out. So that as we get older in the Lord, we grow more like Jesus Christ. It should be a formula, that has absolutely no exceptions, that the older a Christian is, the less he fails.

Unfortunately, many of us, who are getting a bit long in the tooth, have to even recoil at that thought, and say the older we are, the more we become aware of our inadequacies. But we still have as our target, as our overriding aim, to be like Jesus Christ. God will hold me accountable, for the way that I preach, even on a Thursday evening at the tab.

But I say publicly, humbly, there is nothing that dominates my life, more than this. There is nothing I want more than this, than to be like the Lord Jesus Christ, whatever that might cost. Now that's the objective, but it's not easily secured.

Why? Well, for this very reason. When we become Christians, the hostility of the devil, which was already paramount, increases even the more. One of the things the devil cannot do, is rob you or me of our salvation.

But he can rob us of our effectiveness. He can blunt our evangelistic witness. He can make us lethargic, in our spiritual disciplines.

He can put traps in our way. It's the apostle Paul, who tells you in a reference, that you can look up later on, because it's in the notes, who tells us on one occasion, that he, and he uses the plural actually, we are not ignorant of the devices of the devil. I wish I could say that the apostle Paul, was including me in that pronoun.

Sometimes I am culpably ignorant. I shouldn't be, because you see, the practice of the devil never changes. You may feel that the lives and the lifestyle, of Old Testament and New Testament people, were very different, to the lifestyle of the 20th century human being.

That's not basically the case. The principles remain intact. Their problems are our problems.

Our problems were their problems. When the devil set his traps for Eve, he knew that those traps could be laid again, for all of the descendants of Adam and Eve. I tell you in the notes that I wrote, that the Bible says, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

That means that the world belongs to God. Alas, however, there are hostile forces, the powers of the devil, that are at work in our world. The devil has squatter's rights here.

Squatter's rights are temporary. Squatter's rights are questionable, but they do exist. And so you have the devil, let's just move the metaphor slightly, retaining the principle of thought.

You have the devil as a poacher. To become a poacher you have to trespass. To trespass means that you're in territory, where you have no right to go, and you're there with mal-intent.

And that's exactly the way that we see the devil, as his activities are recorded in Scripture. He's a poacher in a world, where he has no permanent rights. And as a poacher, what does he do? Well, he lays his traps.

And the traps that he lays are old ones, because the failings and weaknesses of people, remain the same. Our lives may be a little bit more sophisticated, we're in a technological era. We can get into a metal capsule, which will fling us from one part of the world, to another part of the world, inside twelve hours or so.

But nonetheless, we're still basically, men and women, with the same passions as, say, David. With the same problems as, say, Peter. We are men and women, who are vulnerable to the attacks of the devil.

One of the reasons why General Mountbatten, I got my generals wrong, why General Montgomery, was so successful in the last world war, was that he studied the tactics of Rommel. Rommel was a great German soldier, a very brave man. These two had their armies locked in conflict, in the Middle East theatre of war.

And the only reason why Mountbatten, why Montgomery was successful, was that he studied the strategy of Rommel. He outmanoeuvred him, he outpaced him. And that's what Paul means, when he says, writing to the Corinthians, we're not ignorant of the devil's devices.

We know his methodology, we studied the sort of traps, that he puts down. And we try to take alternative action, to ensure that we don't get caught. What are some of the devil's traps, that remain the same? Well, there is the trap of jealousy.

You remember, it was jealousy, that crippled the family circle of Jacob, centuries ago. Let's exclude Benjamin, he was the youngest and wasn't present. And possibly we could exclude Reuben, though he's got some measure of responsibility.

But in a time lapse, of something like 24 hours, through setting the trap of jealousy, the devil was able, to cause 9 or 10 men, to stumble into the grossest of sins, and be responsible for the enslaving, of their brother, and possibly had it worked out that way, for his death. Jealousy. But jealousy is something, that is rife in the 20th century.

Jealousy is something, that is rife in the church of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of this century, there were two brothers, who were used by God, for the founding, of what became known, as the Pentecostal denomination. The Pentecostal church, by the 1930s, had split into three different groups.

By 1940, into four. By 1950, into five. And if you check the splits, in Latin America, you will find that, it's not in terms of dozens, it's in terms of hundreds.

But come back to our own country. Why was there a major split? Because two brothers, couldn't get on one with another. Though they were spiritual men, to some degree.

Though they were gifted of God, to some degree. Jealousy came in, and there was a fracture, in their relationship. Now you can work that out, at local church level, can't you? You can work it out here.

Jealousy, can become one of the traps of the devil, that ensnares us, as individuals. What about lust? Lust has been a problem for men, and perhaps in a lesser degree, but nonetheless still there, for women, since the beginning of time. Inbuilt into our bodies, are certain basic appetites.

They're right, and they're pure, when exercised correctly. But get them out of control, and like fire can be devastating, when it's uncontrolled, and helpful when it's controlled, so can our sexual nature. And lust today, is one of the great problems, that men, and to some degree, women have to cope with.

Not just David falls, but so many, many people, as the devil lays his traps. What about pride? There was Eve, in the garden of Eden, centuries back. The devil in the form of a snake, slides alongside her, and he offers her, the intoxicating thought, that if she disobeys, what God has said, she will become as God, and so will her husband, if he participates, in her act of folly.

How much pride, riddles the characters, of Old Testament men, and New Testament men, and women. How much pride is with us today? It bedevils the church. The traps of the evil one, remain exactly the same, you see.

His strategy is constant, because human weaknesses, remain the same. What about bigotry? This is one of the most subtle traps, that the devil has ever set, as he is poached, in this world, where he trespasses. You take those Sadducees, and Pharisees, of yesteryear.

These were religious men. They got all the qualifications. They got all the degrees.

Many of them could quote, the Pentateuch off by heart. And that is no mean feat. They were just, seeped in the tradition, and the religious practices, of the Jews.

And they thought they were so high, in the estimation of God, and yet they were so low. And particularly the Pharisees, these bigoted, narrow minded men, who had so many burdens, that they pushed on the shoulders, of ordinary people, that Jesus censured them, and said this is disgusting, this is not fair. But bigotry remains within us today, even the evangelical camp.

This narrow minded attitude, this idea that if you attend church, on a Sunday, and it follows the set pattern, that you want, it doesn't really matter, how you behave on a Monday, or a Tuesday, or a Wednesday, or a Thursday. I've known people, who have had the audacity, to write in to us here, in the tabernacle, and I'm not just speaking of myself personally, as being the one to whom the letter has been addressed, telling us what we ought to be doing, and how we ought to be running things. And later on, when their lives have been exposed, one has seen an absolute bundle of contradictions.

And you wonder how on earth, they can be bigoted on one hand, and so licentious on the other hand. You see, the devil sets his traps, and he knows your weakness, as he knows mine. There are two people in this world, who know my weaknesses, beside myself.

One is the devil, the second one is my wife, and obviously, I've got a fair knowledge, although sometimes I'm blind, to those weaknesses. There was an academy in Athens, years ago, and it had written over the frontispiece of the building, know yourself. And one of the ways, in which you're going to be able to overcome failure, is by recognising honestly, your own weaknesses.

I find that to be honest with myself, is the most difficult thing, because it's the most painful thing. To see myself as others see me. To look into God's word, and to regard the word of God, not so much a book as a mirror, that reflects all the ugliness of myself.

And to realise, that before I have a right to criticise any other person, before I have a right to be a bigot, before I have a right to be narrow minded, and to pontificate about other people's weaknesses, I have to honestly stare myself in the face, as I look at my own inconsistencies, as revealed in the word of God. If I am going to overcome the snares of the devil, I must realise what my weakest points are, and endeavour not to make any means of furnishing them, any means of getting myself into the tempting situation. I sometimes say, that Daniel was exempt from the jaws of the lion, in the den in Babylon, because he was thrown in.

God closes the mouths of lions, when you're thrown into the tempting situation, when you volunteer, you're on your own. And there are many of us, who volunteer and carelessly get ourselves in that situation, where the devil has his traps ready, to jump and to lame us, spiritually. And so many of us have to say, well, yes, these traps as illustrated in the lives of Old Testament men and women, they are here today, and we have fallen, again, and again, and again.

But remember, it's Micah, who's speaking for the whole of his nation, identifying himself with the inconsistencies of others, as well as his own, speaks of the devil, speaks to the devil, and says, Do not gloat over me, my enemy. Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto me.

In other words, it's possible to learn, from your tragedies, from your failures. Again, a significant comment, which I try to incorporate in our outline notes is this, that the greatest tragedy of tragedy, is not to learn. To fall foul of the devil's snare, to endure pain, to pay a tremendous price, and not to learn from that.

That's the greatest tragedy of all. As far as we know, at least in some degree, David learned, at the hand of Nathan, about his impropriety, in the affair with Bathsheba. And one hoped, that it kept him, from other similar situations, at least several, in the years that were yet to dawn.

Here is Peter. He has taken on the Son of God in argument. Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.

You've got it wrong, Lord. I know myself. No, Peter, I've not got it wrong.

I've got it just right. And what the Lord predicted, of course, happens. And Peter rushes off, having seen the face of our Lord, having denied Him.

He rushes off into the darkness. And the blackness of the night is even more intense than the darkness that there is within Peter's heart. But when you start to read about Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the epistles that bear his name, one thing becomes self-evident.

He learned, in part, from his tragedy. And so it is with you and with me. So it is with unfortunate people who get hooked on homosexual practice and drug addiction and alcoholic tendencies.

Let's try to learn. Let's not cover up our mistakes before Almighty God. Let's recognize what these tendencies are.

Let's confess how great has been our sin and come to the Lord and say, but Lord, I want to learn from this. Even this repetitive bout of sinfulness that seems to crop up every month or every year. Lord, I want to learn.

I want to distance the next time when I shall fall in that particular trap that the devil sets. My friend, I don't want anyone to go away from the tabernacle this evening without having very much in their mind that our gracious, sovereign God is tender-hearted towards people who fail. One of the most wonderful stories that ever left the lips of our blessed Saviour was the story of the prodigal.

And if I understand the definition of prodigality and have worked out the theological implications of the story, it means that once that lad was related to his father. Once he was happy in his father's household. Once he had some joy at the thought that he belonged to his father and the company that were there.

And if that is so, and it applies to me, and it applies to you, it applies to the Christian community. The parable of the prodigal is to be seen in terms of the Christian who leaves the father's house and goes into the far country and fails and fails to the extent that he or she is driven to taking pig's food into their own stomach. Becoming so repugnant that they even turn in on themselves and limpingly go back to the father's house.

Ah, but the most wonderful part of the parable is when the father rushes down the hill and he embraces the pig-smelling prodigal and he puts his ring upon his finger and he puts his cloak around him and he takes him back into his house and he throws a party because his son who was dead is now alive. His son who was lost is now found. That parable was addressed, is addressed, to Christian failures.

Thank God that in his house there are many mansions and there are many welcomes for many a prodigal. But I want within my closing few minutes this evening to try to give you help which I claim are in the form of biblical principles gathered from various parts of the Word of God and illustrated in some degree by my own reading and experience of life. If you are to avoid the traps that the devil sets, then let me underline what I said about ten minutes ago.

Identify your weakness. I plead more and more in my own life and in the lives of members of this congregation be honest with yourselves. Be honest with yourselves.

I know there is a distinction between being introspective and engaging in self-examination. The Bible doesn't ask us to be introspective constantly majoring on our weaknesses. But it does say that we are to examine ourselves and expose in our own eyes those areas that we are more likely to fall in.

Those areas of intense weakness. And having identified them, bring them before the Lord and maybe bring them before a Christian friend. I'm not for public confession of certain aspects of human behavior.

There's enough muck that we all know about for it to be paraded openly in front of large congregations. But there is something, some value in what Watchman Nee refers to in one of his books of walking in the light with a brother or sister, a trusted confidant and friend with whom you can talk about your weaknesses, with whom you can share together and get help and stimulus and consolation on life's journey. I believe that there's good measure to be found sometimes in confession in limited areas within the confidentiality of trusted Christians.

Having identified your weaknesses, then starve them. Starve them. I would think that one of the most difficult things for an impoverished Indian brother or sister in Christ to have would be recourse always to the glossy magazines that come out from the West and show our lifestyle, our motor cars, our homes, our curtains, our carpets.

These things can be the stumbling block to a person who lives at a very low level of lifestyle. But the same applies to ourselves. I'm amazed at the magazines that some people will read.

I'm amazed at the newspapers that some young people in particular will buy. Those newspapers are not directed towards your spiritual health. I'm not saying that the Telegraph and the Times are necessarily either.

But there are certain more obvious cheap ways of inducing a young man or a young woman to have impure thoughts that our popular press takes and explodes. The reason why some of them have such massive circulations is not because they're good at being able to propagate news, but rather they propagate filth. And very often it's at that level that the markets are the largest.

Starve your weaknesses and then curb your regrets. How terrible it would have been for William Carey when he was 40 years of age just to have thought in terms of his failures to the extent that he couldn't go on and serve the Lord. Carey had so many problems that hit him in Calcutta and on top of them all was that his wife lost her sanity and was deranged for about 15 years before she died in India.

You imagine trying to cope with that. Carey could just have gone back and back and back on his failures and he would never have been instrumental in reaching that area north of Calcutta all the way through to Bangladesh and on to Burma with the Gospel of Christ. But he was able to confess his sins and believe that God in spite of him his weaknesses could still use him.

Check the story of Hudson Taylor. Check the story of C.T. Studd. These are all men who are stars so to speak in the missionary evangelical firmament but they're also men who write honestly of their own weaknesses.

Do you know the story of Francis Thompson? The man who wrote The Hound of Heaven? That tremendous poem that's been of great value certainly in my life that speaks of The Hound of Heaven and the Holy Spirit stalking us and following us. Do you know what happened to Thompson? He finished up as a recluse on the embankment. He was hooked on a drug.

And it wasn't until kindly friends ministered to him and of all places he came down to Starrington and found some help in a monastery there that eventually he was able to recoup and regather a little bit of his spirituality. What about that great poet William Cooper who gave us many of our hymns? One of his besetting problems was melancholia and depression. That could have killed him.

And indeed I think ultimately it was a basic cause of his death. What about Charles Spurgeon? This man who I comment on so many times. One of the great problems in his life was the problem of depression.

Did you know that? One of the great problems in the life of George Ververy is just being able to move from one failure so he was telling me to another failure and not to quit completely. But you have to curb your regrets. Because if you allow your past failure always to be in your mind then it blights the present and it makes the future an impossible concept in which you can work for the Lord.

Then be honest about your successes. There's a place for modesty within the Christian camp. There is also a case for honesty about what one has been able to do for the Lord.

You remember his name's gone from me Newton's great words I'm not what I ought to be. I'm not what I will be. But thank God I'm not what I was.

I think there are people in the tabernacle family and I say this lovingly who ought to be a little bit more honest about what God has done for them and they wouldn't always be plunged so much into always feeling depressed and despondent. And then almost finally my penultimate point space out your failures. There are possibly some weaknesses in life that this side of eternity some of us will never break.

But at least we can aim to distance them so that our capitulations our falling into the trap become less and less frequent. And then finally let's be optimistic about the future. The Bible tells us that though we retain our sinful natures even though we have been converted the day is coming when Jesus Christ shall gather his church to himself and at the end of time as we know it he shall present his church faultless before his Father.

The day is coming when the holiness I crave for that so often eludes me will be mine. Not mine by gain. Not mine by human qualification.

But mine by the benevolent bequest of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember this my friend. The Bible is addressed to failures.

The Gospel is addressed to failures. But when a failure comes before the Heavenly Father and says, Lord I'm sorry. The very failing is eliminated from the mind of God.

That is one feature amongst many that you do not share with God. I may fail you and you can forgive me but you don't have the human capacity to forget what I've done. God in his infinite grace not only forgives the failure he forgets and he sinks our sins in the sea of his amnesia.

In the sea of his forgetfulness. And he gives us the opportunity of a clean start. Of a clean slate.

And of a new start. Well might Micah speak of himself. Speak of his people.

Speak of the evangelical church prophetically in the 20th century and address the devil. Rejoice not O mine enemy. Don't gloat over me.

Wipe that sickly grin from off your face. Yes I've fallen but when I fall I shall arise. I'm in darkness but the Lord will be a light unto me and lift me out of my failure and ultimately eternally into the success that Christ has won for me and for all who trust him as their Lord and Master.

May these random thoughts have been of some blessing and help to all of us this evening.