A Broken Crutch Series

A BROKEN CRUTCH Based on Prov. 3:5-6

A social science teacher once told my sister that faith in God was only

a crutch. My sister asked me how to answer that, and my immediate

response was to deny it and tell her she doesn't know what she is talking

about. As I reflected more, however, I recognized that though it was

meant as a slam, it really was a statement that could be used for the

defense of the faith. After all, a crutch is not evil. It is a device of service

that enables people who would other wise be helpless to walk about. If

something is a crutch, it is of value for many, and that is just the case with

faith in God.

Man is a moral cripple, and he cannot stand alone. If he does not

have a crutch supplied by God he would be doomed to be a moral invalid

forever. In this light then, calling faith in God a crutch is a compliment. It

should be made even stronger by saying that faith in God is the crutch. It

is the only one that will enable man to walk in the path he was made to

walk in. Man has tried to find meaning to life, and he has tried to get onto

a path of light with other crutches, but everything he leans on breaks and

plunges him into a pit of paralysis. Man's choice is not between having a

crutch, or no crutch, but between having one that holds him up, or a

broken one. Solomon in verses 5 and 6 is counseling his son to lean on the

good and solid crutch of faith in God, and to not put his weight on the

broken crutch of his own understanding. We want to consider the positive

and negative of this advice.

I. ABSOLUTE TRUST IN GOD.

You can't ask for a stronger statement on faith than this. Faith, when

it is true faith, is identical with trust. Faith that stops short of trust is

neither saving nor sanctifying faith. The devils believe in God and

tremble, but they do not trust in Him. Christian faith, as Old Testament

faith, is trust or it is nothing. To know and not trust is of no value. To

believe in all the orthodox doctrines and creeds of Christendom is of no

value if one does not trust in the Lord. This was true in the Old Testament

as well. The Old Testament saint had to put his trust in God or he would

have no fellowship and sense of personal guidance. Judaism was not just a

matter of law as God revealed it. We must distinguish between biblical

Judaism and historical Judaism. Many kept all the laws, but their heart

was far from God, and God despises such formal obedience to ritual. God

has never been pleased with anything less than personal trust. This is the

message of both Testaments. God wants no half-hearted trust. He wants

all your weight leaning on the everlasting arms.

Notice the stress on the person of God. It is trust in the Lord, and not

in the law, or Moses, or anyone else. Acknowledge Him as present in all

your ways. This may seem like commonplace truth, but it is something we

need to be constantly reminded of. So many Christians, like Jews of old,

have gone off the narrow path without being conscious of it because they

transfer their trust from the person of God to some other value. It is a

very subtle process, but it is possible for one to get into a state where the

means becomes the end, and the end is forgotten. One can be so attached

to the 23rd Psalm, or some other portion of Scripture, that you are really

saying that this is your Shepherd rather than the Lord. All Scripture,

theology and methods of worship are to lead us to trust in the Lord, and

not become, in them selves, the chief object of our trust.

Our trust is to be absolute, and in all our ways we are to acknowledge

Him, and not just in those ways in which it is convenient. We have a

tendency to recognize God's presence at worship and Bible study, but

there is no such limitation into that here. An ancient Rabbi, Bar Kappara,

said that this text, "Is the succinct text upon which all the essential

principles of Judaism may be considered to hinge." We have in this text

Judaism at its best in a nutshell, and it fits perfectly into the framework of

Christianity. It is a summary of the personal and perpetual nature of a

redeemed man's relationship with God.

We are to count God in on all we do, and lean on His arm for