STUMBLING
It is easy to understand our spiritual walk and the things that cause us to stumble, when we compare it to a physical walk.
One stumbles while walking on the wrong path that is not meant for him. A child or a weak person cannot walk on a rough or uneven path.
GOD’S word is the safe pathway of righteousness set for us to walk on.
You can stumble because of weakness in your body. Healthy physical body, especially hips and legs enable us to walk steadily in that path.
The sinful nature or the iniquity in us causes us to stumble on the pure word of GOD.
GOD’S love in our heart gives us the enabling to walk that path -like the engine of the car.
Stumbling can be caused by an object or a stumbling stone in your path.
The wickedness of others in this fallen world can become stumbling stones on our path.
You may have experienced unsteadiness in your walk while getting used to a pair of corrective lenses. Your eyes seem to give wrong signals to the brain!
Wrong attitudes of the heart give us wrong interpretation of the word of GOD.
It is the brain that sends signals to the muscles of the legs to take appropriate steps on a specific path.
When our mind is renewed according to GOD’S word, the Holy Spirit in our heart prompts and directs our steps. He becomes our GPS - the Gentle Promptings of the Spirit!
You stumble while walking on a path that is not well-lit.
GOD’S word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
A blind person stumbles even on a well-lit path!
We walk in darkness as those that are blind when there’s no love in us.
If we live according to the word in obedience, we will not stumble.
If we take steps contrary to the word we will stumble.
For example, if there is an elevation on the road, we have to lift the foot higher. We have to conform to the contours of the road. If we don’t, we will stumble!
Stumbling can lead to a fall, causing injuries.
Stumbling delays and hinders our walk.
- Disobedience to GOD’S word. Rebellion.
Jeremiah 6:16-20
Therefore thus says the LORD:
"Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people,
And the fathers and the sons together shall fall on them.
The neighbor and his friend shall perish."
Jeremiah 6:21
Hindrances to our progress in paths that are not meant for us are caused by stumbling blocks laid by the LORD. Pursuing certain paths of medical research, money-making endeavours could be like building towers of Babel in GOD’S eyes. Stumbling blocks could come in the form of rift with co-workers, inability to progress for some reason and so on. Man’s research comes to a deadlock when GOD conceals knowledge!
The LORD interrupts the plans that are not in His will. It is then necessary for us to listen to GOD and obey Him.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord,
thoughts of peace and not of evil,
to give you a future and a hope.
Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
And you will seek Me and find Me,
when you search for Me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:11-13
Great peace have those who love Your law,
And nothing causes them to stumble.
Psalm 119:165
- Iniquity leading to Ignorance causing Spiritual Blindness
Is 59:1-10
We grope for the wall like the blind,
And we grope as if we had no eyes;
We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
We are as dead men in desolate places.
Isaiah 59:10
The solution is with an intercessor, following the footsteps of our LORD.
He saw that there was no man,
And wondered that there was no intercessor;
Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
Isaiah 59:16
Is 53
Open my eyes,
that I may see Wondrous things from Your law.
Psalm 119:18
It is the Holy Spirit Who has to give us revelation of the word of GOD.
- Pride
Hear and give ear:
Do not be proud, For the Lord has spoken.
Give glory to the Lord your God Before He causes darkness,
And before your feet stumble On the dark mountains,
And while you are looking for light,
He turns it into the shadow of death And makes it dense darkness.
Jeremiah 13:15-16
- Intellect.
but we preach Christ crucified,
to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
1 Corinthians 1:23
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
By understanding He established the heavens;
By His knowledge the depths were broken up,
And clouds drop down the dew.
My son, let them not depart from your eyes--
Keep sound wisdom and discretion;
So they will be life to your soul And grace to your neck.
Then you will walk safely in your way,
And your foot will not stumble.
Proverbs 3:19-23
We need to know that wisdom comes from the GOD of creation and acknowledge Him in everything.
- The Iniquity of Self.
O Israel, return to the LORD your God,
For you have stumbled because of your iniquity;
Hosea 14:1
Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night,
for it is written: 'I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'
"But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee."
Peter answered and said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble because of You,
I will never be made to stumble."
Matthew 26:31-33
It was not JESUS Who stumbled, although He stumbled physically with His cross. He knew the path Father GOD had set for Him. Everyone around Him stumbled because of Him!
When JESUS was arrested and taken to trial, the disciples were afraid and confused as to how to react. Peter thought he had to protect JESUS and defend Him. JESUS already made it clear to Peter that he shouldn’t hinder this path He was to take. Satan was trying to use Peter to cause offense to JESUS on His difficult path. Peter’s thinking had to change to align with the path to the cross. Peter was an offence to JESUS and vice versa! The little rock had to be moulded by and according to the Rock of Ages! The root problem in Peter was, and is in all of us - fear for self that would make us do anything to defend and protect self. Peter overcame this at Pentecost by the power of the Holy Spirit and lived victoriously then on.
"yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while.
For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word,
immediately he stumbles.
Matthew 13:21
Then Jesus said to His disciples,
"If anyone desires to come after Me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
Matthew 16:24-25
- Iniquity of putting our trust in material possessions.
'They will throw their silver into the streets,
And their gold will be like refuse;
Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them
In the day of the wrath of the LORD;
They will not satisfy their souls, Nor fill their stomachs,
Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.
Ezekiel 7:19
Putting our trust in material things is contrary to GOD’S word. If our trust is in these, we will stumble at GOD’S word or vice versa.
- Trying to keep GOD’S law without faith.
Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.
For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.
As it is written: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."
Romans 9:32-33
The religious leaders were carefully studying and keeping the laws of Moses to justify themselves before GOD. They seemed righteous in the eyes of people. They did not realise that their hearts were turned away from GOD.The laws revealed the degree of sin in the heart of man.
JESUS, Who is the word made flesh, revealed GOD’S heart, the heart of love.
GOD’S law is a law of love, a law of the heart.
It was impossible for a person to wholly keep all of the laws of Moses which were guidelines to GOD’S law.
For whoever shall keep the whole law,
and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
James 2:10
JESUS and His teachings were different to those of the religious leaders. He was a revelation of GOD’S heart. Their sinful hearts were exposed by JESUS. He was a stumbling stone to them.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin,
and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.
These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.
Matthew 23:23
The Author and the Finisher of our Faith becomes a stumbling stone to us if we are trying to keep the law without faith.
Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men,
but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Matthew 23:28
He will be as a sanctuary,
But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense To both the houses of Israel,
As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And many among them shall stumble;
They shall fall and be broken, Be snared and taken."
Isaiah 8:14-15
and "A stone of stumbling And a rock of offense."
They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.
1 Peter 2:8
- Darkness - no love
The way of the wicked is like darkness;
They do not know what makes them stumble.
Proverbs 4:19
Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?
If anyone walks in the day,
he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
John 11:9
He who loves his brother abides in the light,
and there is no cause for stumbling in him.
1 John 2:10
- Stumble because of the words, actions or attitudes of others.
Stumbling stones.
Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked;
Preserve me from violent men,
Who have purposed to make my steps stumble.
Psalm 140:4
Right Path
Isaiah 35
No one stumbles on the Highway of Holiness.
There are no stumbling stones and nothing that causes stumbling.
Stumbling Others
You shall not curse the deaf,
nor put a stumbling block before the blind,
but shall fear your God:
I am the LORD.
Leviticus 19:14
It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine
nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.
Romans 14:21
Even desiring to see another stumble or rejoicing when one stumbles displeases the LORD.
Causing another to stumble stirs up the wrath of GOD.
When we stumble others, we are stumbling ‘Big Time’!
For I heard many mocking: "Fear on every side!" "Report," they say, "and we will report it!" All my acquaintances watched for my stumbling,
saying, "Perhaps he can be induced;
Then we will prevail against him, And we will take our revenge on him."
Jeremiah 20:10
But you have departed from the way;
You have caused many to stumble at the law.
You have corrupted the covenant of Levi," Says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 2:8
"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble,
it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck,
and he were thrown into the sea.
Mark 9:42
Therefore let us not judge one another anymore
but rather resolve this,
not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way.
Romans 14:13
We can stumble others with our words. Words that can cause them to become confused or disobey the word of GOD.
For we all stumble in many things.
If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man,
able also to bridle the whole body.
James 3:2
We shouldn’t do anything that stumbles another, even if it is legally right.
GOD’S law is about loving the other person, not about justifying myself legally!
But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours
become a stumbling block
to those who are weak.
1 Corinthians 8:9
When we notice someone stumbling, we should intercede for them and reach out to help them. That is what the LORD does for us.
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior, Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen.
Jude 1:24-25
