Some Problems No.4 Failure

We read in this chapter of a remarkable vision that Isaiah had when he saw the Lord. Isaiah and chapter 6. Isaiah writes, in the year that King Isaiah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings.

With two wings, they covered their faces. With two, they covered their feet. And with two, they were flying.

And they were calling to one another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and the thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.

Woe to me, I cried. I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

With it, he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, Here am I. Send me.

Amen. The seventh chapter of the prophecy of Micah, and the eighth verse contains these words. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy.

When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I have before now from this pulpit indicated that I have a great deal of respect for President Jimmy Carter, and I guess that esteem, if I'm honest, is a lot to do with the fact that he is one of the few statesmen in the world who makes public confession of Jesus Christ as his Lord, and who, when he was here for a meeting of world leaders in London, ensured that early on Sunday morning, he was at Westminster Abbey taking communion.

I would pray God that we might have more men who were as prepared in the European section of our society to indicate the religious convictions that they have, as much as some of the Arab leaders do the same. And I suppose that it was because of my esteem for Jimmy Carter that I felt rather distressed when seeing his picture in the press yesterday, showing a man who is extremely despondent, a face which portrayed the strain that he has been going through. A man who is caught in what seems to have been absolute failure and a fiasco.

So much for Carter. It seems to me in a different area that that face I saw became blurred and refocused, no longer with the president's image, but with my own image, for one of the things that I feel has dogged my life and the spiritual front over these past 30-odd-plus years has been failure in many areas where I have so wanted to be successful. And it was on this theme last Sunday evening that I was preaching, and not an uncommon occurrence ran out of time, and felt that my concluding remarks in any case in the providence of God should perhaps be shared with a congregation that's more or less 95% Christian this Sunday morning, as opposed to some of the larger numbers of outsiders that we get in on a Sunday evening.

The world will be waiting to see how Carter reacts to failure. May God help him. But on the spiritual level, I ask myself and I ask yourselves, because surely many of you here must have experienced the same thing as I referred to in the general confession in our prayers, that you have failed.

We have left undone those things we ought to have done, and we have not done those things that we should have put our hands to, and there's no good within us. So often we have to confess that, do we not? Well, I put it to you again. How do you cope with failure in your Christian life, in your spiritual life? We are told in the New Testament, and the New Testament is largely directed to people who have in some way failed, because most of the epistles are correctives, are they not? The Corinthians hadn't failed in some areas would Paul have written his letter to them.

The Galatians haven't failed would Paul have written his letter to them. The Bible, the New Testament, many of the illustrations of men whose stories are in the whole of the Bible underline the fact that this book is directed to people who have failed. Now, when the Bible talks about failure and sin, it has some very interesting language.

In the fifth chapter, for instance, of the epistle of James, and the sixteenth verse, we are told to confess our faults one to another, and I was interested to see that that word fault originally means confess our false steps, and this is directed to Christians, Christian brothers and sisters in a Hebrew assembly. Confess your false steps one to another. Here again, James is anticipating that the readers of his epistle have in some area failed in what they set out to do for the Lord.

You get a different word, still sticking with James, so you don't have to move too far in your Bible. In the first letter that bears his name, and the sixteenth verse, when James says, do not err, my beloved brethren, and that word err means wandering or forsaking the right paths, and again, the implication is that this is just what they were in danger of doing. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love. Be glad if you give me attention on the back row there, please. Prone to wander, yes, that's precisely the experience of some of us here in the tabernacle, and that's why we need this particular injunction from James.

That's why we need to remind ourselves of these various verbs which speak of our inadequacy as Christians. When Paul is writing to Timothy in the first letter of Timothy, and the the first chapter, he has this to say in the sixth verse, speaking of some who have gone astray from the Lord, 1 Timothy 1 6, from which some having swerved, having turned aside unto vain jangling, and that again is an illustration of the situation of some of us here, having having swerved, having turned aside from some of the things which we believe the Lord would have wanted us to do. So many expressions are used.

I've just given you three illustrations in the New Testament to show how Christian people can often miss the mark, swerve, fail in certain aspects of their Christian testimony. And there was only one man who never failed, and his name was Jesus. So when Jesus stands in front of Pilate, the Roman governor, he says, I find no fault in this man.

I analyze his life, I analyze his character, and I find no failure there at all. But when we analyze our own lives, we very often find ourselves using the scripture of the Apostle Paul, when he bemoans the fact that the good he should do, he doesn't do, and the evil that he wouldn't do, that he really engages in. So I come back to the point that I was asking last week.

How do you cope with failure? And this was not just something that challenged Paul, it challenged the prophet Micah, or else he'd never said. Verse 8 of chapter 7 of his prophecy, Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise.

Here is, by implication and assertion, that he has fallen. Well, let's think it through a little more. In what context do you often find, as a Christian, you are reminded particularly of your failure? In what context? Let's put that to the New Testament, also the Old Testament.

When did Isaiah feel an absolute failure? He was this man, charismatic personality, in the classic sense, if ever there was one, preached around Jerusalem, brought down the wrath of God upon people because of their indiscretions, because of their sinfulness. In one sense, quite satisfied to say, woe to the citizens of the holy city. But in the year that King Uzziah died, when Isaiah is in the temple, and he has a vision of the Lord in all his holiness, he turns his woe upon himself, and he says, woe am I, for I am undone.

He has an encounter with the Sovereign God, and he feels an absolute failure. For what else does that word undone infer but that? Peter's on the seashore of Galilee, of the lake, and he hasn't done well as a fisherman on that occasion, and Jesus speaks to him and gives him advice. It's strange advice.

We can't go into the strangeness at this moment. But Peter follows it through, and he goes back onto the lake, and he casts out his net, and he brings in a big haul, and then when he returns to Jesus, he recognizes that here is someone who is all that Peter is not, and he falls down, and he says, depart from me, because I'm a sinful man, O Lord. Failure.

Here's John. He's put into one of the lonely islands of the Mediterranean, because the Roman authorities no longer have allowed him to freely preach the gospel. And while he's there, he hears, or rather, he sees a vision of Jesus.

And when John perceives Jesus in all his purity, he says, I fell down at his feet as one dead. When you contrast yourself with the Lord, when you have an experience of his presence, you feel an absolute failure. Do you not? Isn't that one of the reasons why some of the great Christian saints in their autobiographies seem to recall deterioration in their spiritual life? Other people look on them, and they say, what great men, what great women they are.

But the longer they are with the Lord Jesus, the more the experience of the presence of God, the more they're filled with a sense of their own sinfulness, their own inadequacy. The context I say in which failure becomes apparent is when we feel the presence of God richly. But then, do you ever go from the tabernacle feeling an absolute failure? The Word of God is explained, is expounded, and you're brought face-to-face with God's requirements on your life, and you feel shattered.

You feel crushed. And you go away, and because you've been straightened by the Word of God, you feel, I say, an absolute failure, exercised by the Word of the Lord. And then, what about when you come around the Lord's table? We take the bread and wine, and we remember what Jesus has done for us, and we realize the enormity of our own sin, and again, we turn in on ourselves, and we think, Lord God, face with the love of Jesus, I feel so absolutely foul, such an absolute failure.

Now, I wonder, and I'm trying to think this through almost spontaneously, as I bring the argument before you, I wonder if that's your experience. Do you feel sometimes in your Christian life a failure? You see, when I was confessing last Sunday evening that I've studied failure for more than three decades, I wasn't trying to make some pious point to impress you. This is genuine.

This is a real problem for me. So often, I feel in my Christian life that I have got very little, made little headway. And when I'm face to face with the living God, I feel as though I failed.

I sit in front of the preaching of great men of God, and that sometimes makes me feel worse, and I come around the Lord's table, and I examine myself as I'm bound to before I take the bread and wine, and I confess my sins, and I feel even more, a failure. Oh, wretched man, says Paul, that I am. Who shall deliver me? And that has almost become one of my favorite texts in the New Testament, and in the Old Testament, I delve, as I say, into Micah 7, 8, because here, the prophet acknowledges that he has failed the living God.

What's the common source of our acute despondency? Let me be a little bit more specific. I've given you some context, some general context, in which one sometimes feels an absolute failure, but let's be a little bit more specific. Why do some of our older friends often feel that they have failed the Lord? Well, maybe it's a question of regret.

I wish that I'd come to Jesus years ago, but I came when I was in my 60s, or now I'm in my 70s. I look back upon my life, and there were so many things that I ought to have done, and I didn't do them, and I feel a failure as a result of that. Regrets.

The Apostle Paul might well have harbored that notion. You remember how he confesses that Jesus appeared to him, and Paul says that last of all, he appeared to me, and he goes on in another paragraph elsewhere to say that he is the least of all the apostles. Why? Because he persecuted the Church of God.

You know, that could have held him in spiritual paralysis for the whole of his life. What he had done? He failed. Missed an opportunity.

Could perhaps have argued that he should never have taken the course of action that he did. He who had given assent to the death of Stephen, and had caused havoc amongst the people in the church at Jerusalem. He must have felt an awful failure.

Because even in the latter epistles that he pens, he makes reference still to the fact that he had so maltreated the early Christians. Vain regrets. They sometimes crystallize our failure, do they not? Listen to Dr. Lloyd-Jones speaking in this area, in which he's encouraging people to suggest that it's ridiculous to engage in regret for the past.

He makes reference to the fact that to be miserable in the present because of some failure in the past is a sheer waste of time and energy. The past cannot be recalled, and you can do nothing about it. You can sit down and be miserable, and you can go round and round in circles of regret for the rest of your life, but it will make no difference to what you have done.

Now that is common sense, and it does not need special Christian revelation to demonstrate it. The world in its wisdom tells us it is no use crying over spilt milk. Well, quote that to the devil.

And he says rather cryptically, why should a Christian be more foolish than anybody else? Very often we feel failure because of our regrets for missed opportunities in the past. And then what about spiritual indiscipline? How many times you should have studied the Word of God and you didn't? How many times you should have been before the Lord in prayer, but you weren't? You've known for a long time that spiritual health is very much related to these practices of gaining spiritual nourishment, but you have neglected the latter, and because of that your spiritual health deteriorated. And you feel a failure.

Didn't keep the quiet time, maybe for a week, a month, six months, a year. That does happen to some Christian people. And you feel, I'm never going to get this thing right.

I'm never going to be what I know I ought to be. And you almost give up in absolute despair. And what about the apparent successes of others? If anything is engineered to cause failure in my life, it's when I look at other Christian people who are successful.

And I think by contrast, I couldn't do what they do, I couldn't be what they are. They're so consistent, and they seem to be so full of energy and enthusiasm. And when they pray, their prayers are always answered.

They don't seem to have the dilemmas that I have. They get a hotline to heaven and answers every time. Praise God for their testimony, but it makes me feel an even greater failure.

And then the apparent unlimited power of the devil, who reigns over my lower nature. I'm never going to be able to correct that aspect of my personality because he's so powerful. Some young fellow just cannot get rid of that habit.

Some girl who can't get that practice out of her system. And sometimes you almost come to the conclusion that the devil has more power than God in your life. And so the failure just sets in more.

And you come back to the Apostle Paul in Romans 7 and you say, Oh wretched man, oh wretched woman that I am. Now is that not the case? Generally speaking, I've sketched out the areas in which you sometimes feel a failure. When you are brought face to face with the holiness of God.

When you listen to Bible exposition and your exercise before the word of the Lord. When you come around the Lord's table and you're told to examine yourself. And then there are these more specific areas on which I've touched, cited but a few examples.

What do you say, it's 12 o'clock and I'm feeling worse than what I did when I came here. Let me share with you what I sought the Lord for in the early hours of this day. How Lord shall I tell them to cope with some of the problems that are mine.

And that they must share in degree. Let me give you 10 or 11 things. Again I'll approach it generally.

The gospel was designed for failures. There'd never been a failure. There would never have been a gospel.

Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. I have not come, says Jesus, for those who are healthy. I've come for those who are spiritually sick.

One of the hymns that I love most amongst my top 50 of Christian hymns is, Come ye sinners, weak and wounded. Do you remember how that hymn goes on and it tells you that, that you can come to the Lord Jesus if you've got no qualification at all. If you've got no money.

If you've got no righteousness. If you feel sick and sore you can come. Jesus bids you just to come.

Because the gospel essentially is designed for failures. The second general thing that came into my mind earlier on this day, was that God understands my weaknesses. The Bible says in Psalms, Lord you know my frame.

You understand that I'm dust. Or in the writer to the Hebrews when he's speaking of Jesus he said, We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He's sensitive to us because he took the strains of life as we take the strains.

Only he never broke. But because he has been stretched more than any man has been stretched. Tested more than any man has been tested.

He has this great unique qualification of being able to understand us when we snap, when we break. Jesus understands our failures. And Jesus assesses us not just on mass but as individuals.

Some areas of Christian testimony are easier for some people than others. We're not all equal at the starting point, post. You take the lady who's happily married.

Couple of children who love her. She goes back to her home. Unless for Jesus.

She's got certain pluses. Little lady perhaps, who's not been married. Or who's unhappily married.

Or who's got no children. And no home. Far more advantages the first case than the second.

And does not Jesus therefore understand, does not God our father understand, When we're tested in some areas more than our fellow sisters. You can't have a fellow sister, work that one out for yourself. God understands our weaknesses.

I'm not minimizing sin. Don't take that conclusion away. But, but the Lord knows the chemistry of my nature.

The Lord understands the chemistry of my body. The Lord understands where I'm weaker. And where I'm stronger than some people are.

He understands what he has given me. In terms of enabling me to use the resources that are within me. To withstand pressure.

Some are better endowed than others. In the area of failure. Remember these two things.

The gospel was designed for failures. And God understands our weaknesses. And what's more.

God responds to honesty. That's the third thing. God responds to honesty.

Examine yourselves. As you come before the Lord, be honest with yourselves. You see, it's so easy to fool everyone else, isn't it? And sometimes we fool ourselves.

But the Bible surely indicates in both testaments. That when we come before the Lord. We're to come honestly.

And to confess our weaknesses. Not to excuse them. To confess them.

But the second major thing. Having given you three general observations. Is this.

I believe it's possible to use your failures. How do you mean? Well, to use your failure. To make you a milder person.

A lot of bigotry should disappear. If we were honest with our failures, you know. If I realized just what a failure I am in some things.

Then I wouldn't feel that I had the luxury. To criticize others in secondary matters. That's true.

A failure. Who acknowledges that he's failed. Or she's failed in some areas.

If that acknowledgement is really genuine. Will be a far easier person to get along with. Because they won't be so prone in secondary areas.

To point the accusing finger at other people. Another thing about failure is this. It should make me more open.

The Bible says confess your faults. And we veer away from this. Because we're truly Protestant.

And we don't like the idea of a confessional. And I'm not arguing for one. At least not in the Catholic sense.

But if we confessed our faults. One to another. As the Bible suggests.

If we were more open with each other. Then we'd be able to help one another. In areas where we have failed.

I would never break a pastoral confidence. As God enables me for my life. But I remember one occasion.

Pastorally. When an older friend came along. And poured out their heart.

Something had gone wrong in their faith. In their family situation. And this person was heartbroken.

She said there's one thing. I don't want. And then was quoted the name of someone else.

Who was a friend. I don't want her to know. It was in the area of morality.

Not affecting her. But affecting her family circle. And it was so terrible for her.

That she wanted to contain it. Bottle it all up. And you know.

Some months later. The friend came along. Or I went to the friend.

And in conversation. She said. I'd really like to tell you about a situation.

That's happened in my family. And it was almost identical. To what her friend had had.

Now to this day. They both have the same problem. They both have the same anxiety.

And they're both. Deadly concerned that neither of the others. Should find out.

Because if they did well. They might not understand. And the biblical principle is.

Confess your faults one to another. And if they'd have done that. How much more pastoral aid.

They could have given one to the other. As they confessed family indiscretion. Disappointment.

And tragedy. Being a failure can make you a milder person. It can also make you more open.

It can make you a better worshipper. When I view what the Lord has done for me. And what I constantly offer him.

So inadequately in terms of a consistent life. Then I want to praise him more. In one of the verses of praise my soul.

The king of heaven. Which never made hymns of faith. The writer goes on and says.

He calls a worm his friend. That's magnificent. He calls me his friend.

And I'm a worm. I just go along the ground sometimes. With all the muck.

And all the pollution. And all the inconsistency. And yet God still calls me his friend.

Because of my failure. I should be a much better worshipper. But let me conclude.

I gave you some general observations. And I showed you how to make use of your failure. I'll finish with just one or two specific comments.

No failure needs to be absolutely final. There has no temptation taken use as the apostle Paul. As he writes one of his letters.

There's no temptation taking you. But such as is common to man. And God is faithful.

And he can give you deliverance. Through your temptation. You've no need to take it as being final.

And that's the implication of Micah here. When he says rejoice not against me or mine enemy. When I fall I shall arise.

I do believe that somehow or other. I will get over the problem. That has been dogging me for so long.

Now for some people. To get over some problems in their lives. As Christians it takes years.

But the ultimate possibility is there of being triumphant. And what's more. Remember this.

God's forgiveness is absolute. When I come to God and I ask him to forgive me. For my wrongdoings.

For my inconsistencies. He not only forgives me. He forgets them.

And I think that's marvelous. Because that means I get a clean slate. I can go from the tabernacle here on Sunday.

Having come around the Lord's table. And I can in the presence of God know that my slate is clean. That's a marvelous thing.

Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not preaching that you should take sin and failure lightly. But I believe that you should take them biblically.

So that failure in the past doesn't cause you to mortgage the present. And it's opportunities as you're filled with remorse. And what's more.

Our resources are adequate. In the word of God we do have encouragement. We do have the means whereby we can put to right those things that are wrong in our lives.

Not just the written word. But the fullness of the Holy Spirit. As I depend upon God more and more.

So I believe in my life. He's going to give me victory in certain areas. Perhaps I'm prone to anxiety.

And I know I shouldn't be as anxious as I am. So much one of the problems suffered by our lady friends. Anxiety.

Heedless anxiety that cripples them. And you just can't get over it. Or you think you can.

But by the power of the Holy Spirit and the application of God's word you can. Or as far as the men are concerned. The area of morality.

Of clean thoughts. Of clean habits. I just can't get victory.

But the possibility of victory is extended to you. In the New Testament and in the Old Testament. By the power of God's Holy Spirit.

Your resources are adequate. So you keep working at it. And then lastly.

Your ultimate success is guaranteed. Jesus says, Jude, in his epistle. Shall one day present us before the Heavenly Father faultless.

As death has been swallowed up in victory. So our failures ultimately are swallowed up. In the triumph of Calvary.

In the success of Jesus. And so we continue. In our spiritual pilgrimage.

Recognizing that yes in many areas we fail. Hating ourselves because of our failure. But not allowing our failure in the past.

To paralyze us. In the present. Nor to ruin us.

In the future. The Bible message I repeat. Is addressed to failures.

I only found two men in the Old Testament. Who I couldn't discover had failed in anything that's recorded there. Joseph and Daniel.

The rest. Hundreds of them. Failed.

In some area. And apart from the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament. I can find no example of anyone.

Who has not failed. The biblical message is addressed. To the likes of you.

And me. We are not to undervalue sin. We are not to excuse sin in our lives.

Neither are we to refrain from learning from our past mistakes and failures. But we balance them. With the ability of God to forgive.

And with the possibility of getting a clean slate from the Lord. Every time that we come before him. And we can spin back on the devil.

And we can say with Micah. Alright you've beaten me on many an occasion. But don't laugh too soon.

Rejoice not against me. This is your last laugh. Oh mine enemy.

When I fall by the power of God. I shall arise. When I sit in darkness.

The Lord shall be a light unto me. How do you cope with failure? It's wrapped up. In that verse.

In the Old Testament. May God in his grace make this. Meditation.

Of value. To each one of us. Father we all come to you with some areas of inconsistency.

We ask you for your grace and for your help to eradicate these in our lives. Some of us came to you late on Lord. But we believe that you can restore the years that the locusts have eaten.

We thank you Father God for the way that you love us. Despite our inadequacies. And we just come and pledge ourselves to you again.

And praise you for the way that the blood of Jesus Christ. God's son keeps on cleansing us. From all sin.

So enable us to live better lives for you. In the name of Jesus. Amen.