Have you ever had the experience of being reminded of the very truths you have proclaimed and written when you are in a difficult situation? That was my experience in my failure and defeat. Can a person who has walked with the Lord and served Him for many years fall so badly? That is what happened to me. Can a person who had preached the truth of God’s Word hide his sin and live a deceitful life? That is what I did. Can such a person be forgiven and restored to fellowship with his Lord? That is what the Lord did to me. Can Such a person serve the Lord again? That is what the Lord has asked me to do. This is the story of my life in recent times and I want to share it with you humbly praying that the Lord will use it to bring hope and blessing to those, particularly those in God’s service, who have fallen and are struggling with discouragement and despair.
FAILURE IS NOT SUDDEN
Suku had performed this stunt with his pet python many times. He found it very small in the forest and was immediately attracted to it. He brought it home and fed it and brought it up. He practised this act with it daily. He would flick his finger and it would slowly come to him and wrap itself around his body. At another flick of his finger it would unwrap itself and go back to its basket. Suku’s friends saw this and warned him that someday it would crush him to death. Suku did not heed their warning. Nor did he realise that the snake was growing to be big. He always thought that he could handle it even if there was any danger. One day at the street corner Suku was performing as usual before a big crowd. The huge python wrapped itself around his body at the flick of his finger. But as he flicked his finger again, it did not unwrap itself. Instead, as the horrified crowd watched in silence, the python crushed him to death. He was helpless because the python which he thought was under his control was now stronger than him.
That is how it is with sin. The beginning of spiritual and moral failure may be small and in secret. lt may begin with a seemingly innocent attraction leading on to questionable decisions. At this point the Lord does send out His warning signals. But as we ignore these and yield to the pull of sin, the process of failure sets in. David called it “transgression” in Psalm 51.1. That is, ‘crossing the boundary’”, exceeding the limit. Moral distinctions get blurred and moral and spiritual values are eroded. We are not even aware of it. If we are Christian workers well respected and accepted, business goes on as usual! We keep getting more and more invitations to preach, more committees want us to be the chairman and we do not know how to stop. This was my situation. Sometimes I had groaned in my spirit and cried out, “Stop the bus, I want to get off.” But the bus did not stop and I was being carried on. God had His own way of getting us off the bus so we can face our “transgression.”
In this process of failure every step is a downward step, it is a decline. David called this “iniquity ” (Psalm51:1). That is, “deviating from that which is straight. “As sin takes root and spreads, it begets other evils, the chief among them being deceit. That is why David prayed, “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts” (Psalm 51.6). If we are in Christian service or leadership, and if we do not want to give up our sin because of bondage to it, then we begin to live a double life, a false life. We betray our life partner, our family members, our colleagues in the ministry and the people to whom we minister. I was guilty of this. God in His mercy has His own way of bringing us out of our life of hypocrisy but it will be the path of shame and humiliation. It may be also the time when others, taking advantage of our grovelling in the dust, add insult, ridicule and false accusations to our misery. The Lord does permit all this to break us and to make the crooked straight.
Discouragement and depression were often at my doors during this experience of failure. Sometimes it looked as though they would overwhelm me but the Lord kept me. David Wrote, “Be merciful to me, O Lord, for l am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief” (Psalm 31:9). Maurice Roberts, editor of “The Banner of Truth” writes, “Good men who have defiled their garments in public are their own tormentors. They cry by night and sigh by day.” The words that are constantly on their lips are ‘If only”. They are plagued by a sense of loss, loss of opportunities, loss of testimony, loss of all that God had for them in His plan. The thought of grieving the Lord, letting Him down and missing His plan torments them. That is why David called his failure sin (psalm 51.2). That is, missing the mark”. It is missing God’s plan, His best in one’s life. When the Lord called me to His service, He gave me my life motto, “Them that honour Me, I will honour” (I Samuel 2:30). But how I had dishonoured Him! I could not bear that.
“Our God is a God of Second Chance because He is the God of Grace and mercy.”
The picture is that of a building that has been coming up so beautifully according to the architect’s plan and then suddenly it collapses. There has been a process of deterioration which no one knew that led to this sudden collapse. What grief! What loss!
FAILURE IS NOT FINAL
The bird with the broken wing, can it soar again? Can it sing again? The broken vessel, can it be remade? The fallen saint, can he walk again with his Master? Can he serve Him again? The answer is Yes because of the grace of God. How I cling to that word, grace! It is God’s favour extended to the unmerited one. Often, have preached, ‘Failure is not final with Christ.’” Now, this truth has come afresh to me. The greatest temptation is to give up. But worse than falling is giving up. David covered up his sin, lived a lie and yet when he was confronted with his sin, he accepted it and pleaded for God’s mercy and forgiveness. He asked that his transgression be blotted out, his iniquity be washed thoroughly and his sin be cleansed. He knew that there is not only forgiveness in God’s mercy but also removal of the guilt and cleansing of the deceit and error. Hallelujah, what a saviour!
In dejection and despair as I groped for a glimmer of hope. God’s Word became very real and precious. He quickened His promises from Scripture through praying people and through my personal reading. Two of these are Jeremiah 30:18 and Amos 9: 1 1. “This is what the Lord says, ‘I will restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents and have compassion on his dwellings; the city will be rebuilt on her ruins, and the palace will stand in its proper place. “In that day l will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be. ” How compassionate and tender our Lord is! “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smouldering wick He will not snuff out’” (lsaiah 42:3). I can identify with David when he wrote, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1,2). The word “forgiveness” means the “lifting or removing of sin”. Sin is carried away from sight. The word “covered” implies that God does not remember it any more. He cancels the debt and does not hold anything against the sinner. Finally, He cleanses the deceit and the falseness that have crept in. What a great salvation!. Failure is not final with Christ.
“A merciful and gracious God can gather up the broken pieces and make a beautiful vessel.”
But this salvation is not cheap. It is not easy forgiveness. We do not pay any price or do any- thing to merit it. But there are certain conditions if it should become real in our experience. First, there must be the right realisation. David owned his sin and accepted responsibility for it. The tendency is always to blame others or our Circumstances. Though I covered up my sin until was found out, I do accept full responsibility for my shameful behaviour and grieve over it. All sin is sin against God and deserves His punishment. We must realize this as David did (Psalm 51.4).
Secondly, there must be the right requests. The dominant desire must be for reconciliation with God and to obey Him. All other things are secondary. The loss of fellowship with the Lord is the greatest loss not the loss of reputation or position or acceptance by people. David realized this and His cry to the Lord was for the restoration of the joy of His salvation and his request was that He should not cast him away from His presence (Psalm 51:11, 12). When Saul’s sin was pointed out, his plea was “l have sinned. But please honour me before the elders of my people and before Israel” (I Samuel 15:30). The danger is that we care for the restoration of our ministry, our influence and reputation more than we care for the restoration of fellowship with God and His approval. The Lord spoke to me about this. I wrote in my diary, “Lord, my prayer is not that I may accomplish something for you but that I may please you. “A letter from a dear friend of mine who has been close to me for thirty five years made me write in the diary, “Lord, please let the inward and the outward, the private and the public, the word and the deed be one in my life, I want inward integrity.”
Failure Can show us the falseness of our values and the wrongness of our priorities”
Let us look at David’s requests. He asked for a true heart (51.6), a wise heart (51.6), that is, a heart controlled by the fear of the Lord because the fear of the Lord is true wisdom and then a clean heart (Psalm 51:10), that is, an integrated heart, united to fear God. All this for his inner life. He did not ask the Lord to restore his outward glory and greatness. That is up to the Lord. His Concern was for his walk with Him. He also prayed for the steadfast spirit (Psalm 51:10) which will keep him from an up and down life, the Spirit of holiness (verse 11) who will keep him holy and the willing spirit (verse 12) which will help him to obey readily.
Did God answer David’s prayer? Certainly, yes. He did not treat him as an ex-adulterer, an ex- murderer or an ex- backslider but called him David “my servant” (I Kings 11:13). He told Solomon that David walked” in integrity of heart and uprightness” (I Kings 9:4). Has God forgotten who David was? When God forgave David, He did not keep on remembering, who he was in the past but saw who he was in the present. Much later, Paul declared, “When David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep, he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed” (Acts 13: 36). Failure is not final with Christ.
FAILURE IS NOT WASTE
Out of a broken heart and a crushed spirit, the servant of the Lord who had failed his Master and lost the opportunity He gave, may ask, ‘Will I have another chance?” The answer is “Yes” if God has forgiven him. Our God is a God of the Second Chance because He is the God of mercy. His grace and promise is,” will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten ‘ (Joel 2:25). The word “repay” is also translated as “restore”. God will restore the wasted years and the wasted opportunities. David wrote, ‘Then will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you’” (Psalm 51:13). Note the word “‘then”. In the previous verses he has been asking for cleansing and restoration. Now he says that coming out of his experience of sin and failure he will teach other sinners God’s ways and turn them to Him. Out of his failure the sweet singer of Israel became teacher of transgressors. The sovereign Lord never wastes any experience of His penitent and obedient child including that of failure. I must say this very cautiously. This does not give the license to sin, nor does it play down the seriousness of sin against God. But a merciful and gracious God can gather up the broken pieces and make a beautiful vessel. He can gather up the seemingly wasted experiences and use them for His purposes. Through his experiences of pain and heartache which he brought upon himself due to his sin, David was made more compassionate and tender towards other transgressors. He could identify with them and show them the way.
“Success has a strange way of numbing us to realities around us and failure wakes us with a rude shock”
There were consequences of David’s sin in his kingdom and his family. They were painful experiences but the Lord used them to chastise him and make him a man after his heart. Failure is not a waste when it is confessed and repented off. Peter denied the Lord very vehemently. But our Lord had already told him, I When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”” (Luke 22:31). He would have a special ministry because he had gone through the pain and agony of denying his Master. When the risen Lord met him by the Sea of Tiberias, He said to him, “Feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, feed my sheep’” (John 2 1:15- 17). His earlier commission was to be the fisher of men. It was not annulled now. It was enriched. Because of his failure he could understand those who went astray or suffered and could minister to them. The fisher of men could also be the feeder of the flock.
There are many broken lives and people with broken dreams and hopes around us. With our own hearts bleeding from failure and sin and yet tasting the forgiveness and mercy of the Lord we can offer hope to them. This is what the Lord has done in my own life, He has given a new understanding of the despair and misery of those who have fallen and do not know the way back to restoration and hope. During these past months he has brought some of these to our home to be ministered to.
Failure can also show us the falseness of our values and the wrongness of our priorities. Let me quote from my diary. “My life before this failure had become a grind, a mechanical round of endless activities with the constant pressure, a weight around my neck to meet deadlines for articles, conference papers and recordings for radio. I had overlooked, neglected and sometimes ignored human relationships, the most important one being that with my wife. But now she is special to me. People are special to me. I have an interest in what they do and what they experience. They are not mere objects of my spiritual therapy. I do not see them as potential recruits or supporters for my mission. ” I had become harsh and hard without even knowing it. Success has a strange way of numbing us to realities around us and failure wakes us with a rude shock. Someone told me recently, “did you not say from public platforms that IEM is your breath?” That was the problem of misplaced priority. Christ should have been my breath, my life!
In the experience of failure learned to depend less on myself and others and utterly on the Lord. How easily we drift along making our plans and depending on the loyalty and help of those near us! Failure calls a halt to all of this and suddenly we realize our isolation and aloneness. It is then that we find our Lord and His strength and sufficiency in a new way.
One person affected the most because my sin is my wife. She went thro’ much pain and agony. She had been a great source of blessing to me all thro’ our married life and I betrayed her. Yet, she stood with me in my moment of failure and now helps me in the process of restoration through her prayer. Her counsel helps me to make decisions so that I do not repeat the mistakes I made in the past. She warns me of getting, too busy to be a ‘normal Christian’ When hurting letters and false accusations come, she stands with me and encourages me. She is aware of the attempts made by these accusers to break our marriage so it could not be restored. But praise the Lord, she did not give them a chance! I praise God for her.
One further word! The Lord took the prophet Jeremiah to the potter’s house to learn a lesson, The pot he (the potter) was shaping from the clay was marred in his hand: so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best of him. (Jeremiah 18:4). The marred vessel was remade and it was the best the potter could make with that clay. It is not right to say that failure dooms us to the second best. It is true that we miss God’s plan when we fail. But the sovereign Lord of grace does not give us the second best but another plan. It will be a new life, a new ministry, a new direction and a new way! One chapter in the book has closed and another chapter is to be written! What a Saviour! What a Lord! Failure is not final with Him.
I am committed to love Him and serve Him till I die and then in eternity. Will you do the same?
-Dr Theodore Williams
