Acts 14

Stand On Your Own Feet

Stand upright on thy feet. Acts 14:10.

I wonder how many of you include the word “can't” in the list of words you use. It is a very stupid word, and does us no end of harm, and the sooner we get rid of it the better. I shouldn't have anything to do with it if I were you. I should just politely show it the front door!

Now I want to tell you about two boys who would not have anything to do with the word “can't”; and, oddly enough, they each became in after life President of the United States of America.

The first boy's name was Ulysses Grant. He could never bear to give up a difficult problem. Once a schoolfellow, seeing him very much puzzled over something he was studying, said, “You can't master that.” “Can't,” said Grant, “what does ‘can't ' mean?” “Oh it means that well, you can ' t” But that answer did not satisfy Ulysses, so he went for the dictionary and hunted for the word, and of course he did not find it. Ever after, when he was told by anyone that he was attempting something he could not accomplish, he had his answer ready “The word ‘can't' is not in the dictionary.”

But Ulysses Grant was not one of the boys who merely said things and did not act up to them. He soon proved that the word “can't” was not in his vocabulary. From the time he was seven or eight he used to be sent by his father with a wagon and a team of horses to bring in some logs of wood from the forest. His father had men to cut and load the timber. but Grant had to bring it home. One day, when he was about twelve years old, he arrived at the forest to find there was no one to load for him. He was determined not to be beaten, but how was a boy to lift a weight that strong men could hardly move? Then his eye lighted upon one trunk which had fallen over another and that gave him an idea. He fastened the horses to the logs and got them to drag them up an inclined plane formed by a trunk, after which he managed to tilt them over into the wagon. So, quite unaided, he secured his load and brought it home.

That was the boy who was put in command of the forces of the North in the American Civil War and who was twice made President of the United States.

The other boy's name was James Garfield. He rose from a log cabin to the White House of the President. He was just a poor boy to begin with, living in a wooden hut, and running barefoot about the woods, but he had a wise mother who used to say to him, “Half the battle is in thinking you can do a thing.”

So, from the time he was a little child Garfield could not bear to say, “I can't.” His favorite expression was, “I can do that.”

Now, perhaps you are wondering what all this has to do with our text. Well, the people who say “can't” are the people who are not able to stand upright on their feet, or, as we say, “they can't stand on their own feet.” Indeed we sometimes wonder if they have any feet to stand on. We suppose they have, but they make so much use of other people's to support them that it is not surprising if we doubt if they have any of their own. They require constant propping up. They can't fasten their own buttons, they can't undo their own knots, they can't learn their own lessons, they can't put away their own toys, they can't amuse themselves, they can't think for themselves.

Now, if you want to grow to be men and women, you must put the word “can't” out of your vocabulary. You must learn to do things for yourselves. If you like, you can choose the other way you can get other people to help you. It will be the easier way at the time, but in the long run it will be the harder. For there will come a day when you will stand on your own feet, when all support is withdrawn, and the chances are that you will wobble and collapse. Muscles that are not used become useless, and if you don't practice standing on your own feet when you are young, you may never be able to walk at all.

But there is another way in which we have to stand upright on our feet, and that is in facing temptation. We all have to stand alone against our temptations. Nobody else can face them for us, and the question is, Are we going to stand upright, or are we going to fall before them?

Now, although none of our earthly friends can face them for us, there is Somebody above who can help us to stand upright before them. Jesus became a man, and was “in all points tempted like as we are,” so that He might understand what our temptations are, so that He might be able to sympathize with us, and help us.

Will you try to remember that, when you feel like falling before temptation, Jesus is close beside you, and He understands. If you stretch out a hand to Him, He will hold you up and make you able to stand upright upon your feet.