Sermons from the Psalms, 5 - Fainting
By Clovis G. Chappell
"I had fainted, unless I had believed." Psalm 27: 13
Clovis G. Chappell:
HERE is a man who realizes that he has had a very close call. He has just succeeded in traversing a bit of rugged road that threatened to work his ruin. More than once had his knees gone weak. More than once had the whole world seemed to grow black about him. Again and again had he been on the point of toppling over in a dead faint. But when he was reeling in his tracks and ready to fall, there was one firm staff that did not break in the grip of his clutching fingers. There was one solid wall against which he leaned that he found amply able to bear all the weight he could put upon it. That wall was faith. So he won through; but as he looks back over it all he declares with humility: "I had fainted, unless I had believed."
I
Now fainting is one of the most common and deadly foes that you and I have to face. We know from our own experiences what it is and something of the havoc that it works. Sometime ago I was preaching in a church that was greatly overcrowded. Suddenly a gentleman who was standing in the rear of the building toppled over with a dull thud. The moment before he fainted he was, to all appearances, an eager and interested worshiper. He was making a worth-while contribution to the service. But as soon as he had fainted all this was over. There was no use to give him a hymn book; he would not sing. There was no use to pass him the collection plate; he could not give. There was no use to call him to prayer; he could not pray. There was no use to preach to him; he could not listen. Not only so, but four other men who had also been making their contribution to the service had to leave in order to look after him. Thus, by his fainting, he not only ceased to be an asset, but became a positive liability.
But for every one who faints physically there are literally scores who faint spiritually. How many such do we have in all our churches! Once they could be counted upon to be in their places at every service. Once the whole moral tone of the community was purified, in some measure, through their efforts. But all this is passed. The fires of their enthusiasm have gone out. Their interest has become listlessness. They are no longer a help, but a positive hindrance. They are no longer life-giving, they rather lie like huge stones across the mouth of the sepulcher where God is trying to raise some needy Lazarus from the dead. And this is the case, not because they have become openly antagonistic to the Church. It is the case not because they are vicious or flagrantly corrupt. It is rather the case because they have fainted.
A few years ago, over in a staid old city of Virginia, a lovely young couple stood before the altar to be married. They were of sufficient prominence socially for the event to be one of importance, not only to themselves, but to their community. All went well till the minister was about in the middle of the ceremony. Then his voice suddenly faltered, his ritual dropped from his fingers, and he himself toppled over into the palms. And there stood the embarrassed couple only half married. I rejoice to say that this minister was not so far gone that he could not be restored. Friends took him into the open air, and he was at last able to see his task through, "and they lived happily ever after."
But such tragedies do not always end so fortunately. In fact, because of our proneness to faint, our lives and our world are cluttered up with half-finished tasks. There are beautiful pictures that we never quite paint, books that we throw aside when we have written only the preface. There are fine goals from which we turn back when our pursuit has only begun.
Near a certain Southern city there stood for years a very expensive building called "The Pink Palace." It was constructed of beautiful pink marble that had been brought from a distance of hundreds of miles. But in spite of all the wealth and labor that had been expended upon this palace, in spite of the beautiful material of which it was builded, it was not a poem, as it was surely meant to be. It was only a windowless ruin. This was the case because the builder fainted and gave over his task before he brought it to completion.
While I was pastor in Washington, D. C., I was sent one summer to the Panama Canal Zone on a preaching and lecturing tour. Here and there, as we crossed the isthmus, I noticed great heaps of machinery that were slowly sinking into the mud and rusting away. Upon asking about these worthless heaps I was told that they had been left there by the French. Then I remembered that the French had undertaken to dig the canal and join these two seas. To that end they expended much money and not a few lives. But they did not see the task through. This was the case, not because they had proved the enterprise to be either undesirable or impossible, but rather because they fainted before their dream came true.
So we might go on endlessly. For of all cause of failure in every department of life there is none more sure than fainting. No wealth of opportunity, no gift of ability, even to the point of genius, can save us if we yield to this temptation. Had you and I been present when that famous race between the hare and the tortoise was run, who of us would have staked anything on the leaden-footed tortoise? But it was he that won, not because of his fleetness of foot, but because of his staying powers. Much of Thomas Edison's success is no doubt due to his keenness of intellect, but still more is due to his ability to hang on to the track of a dream with the tenacity of a bloodhound till he has made it a reality. If lack of opportunity and lack of ability have slain their thousands, fainting has slain its tens of thousands.
Since this is the case it is not to be wondered at that the writers of the Bible warn against fainting again and again. No more is it a matter of wonder that, when they seek to show us the religious life at its very best, staying power, a stubborn refusal to faint, is one of its prominent characteristics. Possibly the finest word, for instance, that they have to say of Moses is that he endured (Heb. 11:27). There was opposition, there was disappointment, there was bitter heartache, but he endured. Such staunchness, they felt, could only be accounted for in terms of God. So they said: "He endured as seeing him who is invisible."
And they keep looking back to this same sturdy quality in Abraham. He had been lured into the unknown by a great dream that seemed destined never to come true. God had promised him much, but long years had slipped by and nothing had come of it. Springtime had gone, summer had gone, autumn had gone, and the gray days of winter were rapidly flying past. Still the promised heir had not come. But this stanch soul never gave up, never believed for a moment that God was going to let him down. "He staggered not at the promises," (Rom. 4:20) writes Paul with evident admiration. And refusing to faint, he at last realized his dream.
