I’ve Fallen…and I Can’t Get Up! July 15, 2008

Remember that old commercial?  It was kind of a twisted irony that the subject matter was serious, yet the commercial itself turned into a running joke (partly because of its less-than-realistic dramatization), with the title of this post as its punch line.  The lady needed help…and it was just a phone call away.  In real life, when someone has a life crisis…it just might be you on the other end of that phone call.

This verse was in my reading this morning:

 

“Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he [Jesus] turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” Mt. 16:22,23

 

Here’s the connection…(I know you must be wondering!)  This comes on the heels of Peter’s confession of Christ (“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”) and the Lord’s pronouncement of blessing upon him.  Ever wonder about that strong rebuke?  There was justifiable cause!

 

Poor Peter was a knee-jerk personified.  Most every event recorded from his early life was an exhibition of some sort of impetuous behavior, in word or deed.  In this account, he had not yet learned to weigh his words.  Here is a small dissection from Robertson’s Word Pictures of the New Testament:

Get thee behind me, Satan (Hupage opisw mou, Satana). Just before Peter played the part of a rock in the noble confession and was given a place of leadership. Now he is playing the part of Satan and is ordered to the rear. Peter was tempting Jesus not to go on to the cross as Satan had done in the wilderness. “None are more formidable instruments of temptation than well-meaning friends, who care more for our comfort than for our character” (Bruce). “In Peter the banished Satan had once more returned” (Plummer). 

A stumbling-block unto me (skandalon ei emou). Objective genitive. Peter was acting as Satan’s cats-paw, in ignorance, surely, but none the less really. He had set a trap for Christ that would undo all his mission to earth. “Thou art not, as before, a noble block, lying in its right position as a massive foundation stone. On the contrary, thou art like a stone quite out of its proper place, and lying right across the road in which I must go–lying as a stone of stumbling” (Morison).

What can we take away from this?  We need to exercise discernment and rely upon the Spirit’s guidance when offering counsel.  Sometimes it is better to say “I don’t know” than to “shoot from the hip” with a scrap of untried spiritual application. 

Another thing I have noticed in years of church work is that hard words (exhortation) are often avoided or substituted by words of comfort that may be counter-productive to God’s purposes–or even injurious.  Plain and simple, sometimes the counselee needs to hear things straight.  “Tough love” as some label it…”speaking the truth in love” as the Bible calls it.  We should not be afraid to edify someone by confronting them.  Is it comfortable?  No, not usually.  Is it right?  Yes…”Iron sharpeneth iron”.  I love friends who have enough “moxie” (as my Dad used to say) to prayerfully and biblically set me straight, rightly dividing the Word of truth.  Those friends love me.  I may not see it immediately.  As in the healing of the blind man, i may first see “men as trees walking” (Mk. 8:24, 25), and after time, when the Word has sunk into the pores of my soul, I see things increasingly more clearly.

We feel passionate about sharing the gospel…we have the truth, and it is wrong and unloving for us to watch others inch nearer to the precipice of eternity without our warning them.  I believe it is no less unloving to allow a friend, family member, or counselee to continue in a life devoid of victory when God has revealed the means for me to lift them up:

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.  Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10 

And woe unto me if I do not first live a consecrated life so I can be usable (in word, action and by example), and further, woe unto me if I do not make the effort to help.  I hope you’ll find something to “help [you] up” here at the blog.