Though He Fall Ps.37:23 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

Ps 37:23 says that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.  But v. 24 says, though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down.  If his steps are being ordered by the Lord, why would he ever fall?  That doesn’t seem to make sense.  It seems that any man whose steps who are ordered by the Lord would never fall.  We fall even when our steps are ordered by the Lord because:

We don’t always follow God’s orders – there are a number of ways that we end up not following the steps that the Lord orders for us.  For instance, we may ignore him.  We may disobey him. We may veer periodically from his steps.  And when we don’t follow the ordered steps of the Lord, we can fall.  We may not fall right away.  We may become complacent in our ways.  Then one day, wham, down we go.  And yet, in spite of us, the Lord upholds us.

We learn best by our mistakes – sometimes, there is no better way for the Lord to teach us a lesson than to allow us to walk right into trouble.  He sees something in our lives or in our character that needs to change and so he lets that fault take us down.  And when we are flat on our back we resolve to never let that happen again.  And the problem is fixed from then on.

We can be a warning to others – when we crash because of a flaw in our lives, others who see us fall take note.  A genius learns from the mistakes of others.  People who observe our fall and people we instruct by recounting our falls benefit from our experience.  The Lord can literally lead us into circumstances that result in our fall just so others won’t repeat our mistakes.

We have to let go of some things – we often don’t realize when we are walking with the Lord that we are also hanging on to something else, as well.  Sometimes we hang on to a mentor.  Sometimes we hang on to a philosophy, a tradition or even a deceit.  We don’t need to hang on to any of these things when we are following the Lord.  And if he sees that we are more reliant upon these than we are on him, he’ll let us fall to teach us to let go of these things.

We must know the power of God’s hand – we get closer to the Lord when he picks us up from a fall than at any other time.  Falls are hard, to say the least.  They hurt.  But when we turn to the Lord after a fall we find out the truth of “the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.”  You can fall so hard that you believe no one can rescue you.  And then you “look up” and there the Lord is, not only able to lift you up, but glad to do it.

We aren’t perfect yet – try as we may to be perfect, we aren’t.  You can do your best to follow the ordered steps of the Lord, but you need to remember that you are not the Lord.  Until we get our glorified bodies, we are still sinners.  And sin in our lives is going to mess with us from time to time.  Like one preacher used to say, “God gave fleas to dogs to remind them that they are dogs.”

Conclusion: your steps are ordered by the Lord when you are saved.  You need to look carefully for his direction in every step you take.  Don’t ignore him.  Don’t disobey him.  Don’t veer from his path.  But remember that falls are part of your walk with the Lord.  So, be ready.  And when you fall, look to the Lord’s hand to help you back up because “a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again,” [Prov 24:16].