Good morning Brothers and Sisters.  Todays exhortation is based on the expression “Men
Don’t stumble over mountains, but they trip over pebbles”.     It is a talk that I often give myself
in portions, but never have I, until now, sat down and wrote the whole thing out.  So here it is.
	The quotation was written by Emilie Cady Stanton.  I find myself thinking of this saying
whenever I have a decision to make.  It’s funny isn’t it that the saying is about watching out for
the small things and I usually think of it only when I have a larger choice that requires thinking to
make.  After all , it is the culmination of all the choices that we have made, great and small that
make us who we are today. And I bet, if we stop and think of it, we make exponentially more
small choices than large ones.  And we make these choices without a thought as to the outcome.   
	I like to imagine my life as a great, tightly woven tapestry.  And at each point where a
thread crosses another there is a point at which I must make a decision; a point where there could
be a turning.  A continuance of the path that was taken, a turn to God or a turn away from God. 
Taking the right path is often a very hard decision.  More often than not, we don’t even think
about the path that we follow or the intersection we have come upon.  We just go. 
	But because we were given free will of God, these are things that we must take
responsibility for:  All the Choices.   We must accept responsibility for our own actions. The
situations we encounter throughout life were a result of our own choices.  As seen in
Deuteronomy 30:15
	“See, I Have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.”
We can read Jeremiah 2:19 for further proof of this:
	“Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know
therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and
that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.”
	God has often tries to impress on man the crucial principle that every effect has a cause.
But we have difficulty grasping this truth, so we continue to suffer the debilitating effects of our
transgressions. We can trace many tragedies and much suffering to our own all-too-human actions
and decisions.  In a world of freedom of choice, some choices inevitably lead to harmful and
painful results.  Actions yield consequences.  Many people recognize the saying “You reap what
you sow,” but they do not realize that it comes from the Bible in Galatians 6:7. And thousands of
years before, one of the friends of Job—no stranger to suffering—observed that “those who plow
iniquity and sow trouble reap the same” Job 4:8.
	When we analyze the our pain and suffering, we can learn much if we will trace the
circumstances back to their cause.  Proverbs 22:3 warns us to consider the long-term
consequences of our actions:  “A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass
on and are punished.”
	When we look for the main causes of our suffering, we often need look no further than
ourselves, not the decisions and actions of  humanity as a whole.  In one way or another sin is
usually the underlying cause, and suffering is the effect.
	I often become upset with myself when I think “If this would have happened, I could have
done that”  or “Why did this have to happen to me?”  Both of these statements, or questions are
rhetorical.  Rhetorical in the fact that they often do not require a response.  And I think that
everyone deep down knows the real answer.  Things do not just happen to us.  We were given
free will to do on this earth as we please. We create every situation we encounter because we
have made the choices that have placed us at that junction.  
	If while sitting here at the meeting, I were to bend down and pick up a book that my
neighbor had dropped, and I split the seam of my slacks as I did so,  what might be my first
thought.  Would it be “If my neighbor hadn’t dropped his book, I would have never had to bend
down and thus, my slacks might be in tact”.  When in reality what I should be thinking is “I should
never have worn these slacks when I knew that they were getting too tight for me”.  or I should
never have had that second piece of pie for dinner last night.  Or better yet,  I should never even
have bought that pie at the grocery store in the first place.  I can’t blame my neighbor for that,
they weren’t at the grocery store with me.  Again, we must each take responsibility for where we
are in our lives, just as Christ did.	
	In the gospels we find Christ nailed to a tree and we have a pretty good description of the
events that happened concerning him.  Never do I hear that He blamed Judas for His demise. He
spent his remaining hours in quiet contemplation of his masters plan and singing psalms.  In His
perfection, he had no other course but to accept responsibility.  Of course, if we were of the
mainstream Christian faith we could say that Jesus had no choices; that His life was predestined to
serve the Father.  We, as Christadelphians know that this is not the case.  Christ was human.  He had 
choices to make, but for some reason he seemed always to make the right one.  This is where I want 
to be in my life.  I want all the choices I make to honor and please God.  But for some reason, I can never
seem to get to that point.  Perhaps it is my personal relationship with God that is lacking.  Perhaps
if I were to allow myself to become closer to the Word, I could become more adept at knowing
just what God wants of me.  But right now I feel a long way from that point. 
             My fear at the present time is not only for me, for my own salvation, but what I am
teaching my child about life, and how I am affecting his relationship with God. What example am
I setting for him and those around me?  When he falls to the floor and hurts himself  while trying
to execute one of his famous ottoman to couch leaps, do I comfort him by saying “oh, that mean
ol’ couch” or something of the like.  Am I saying to him that he is innocent in the event.  Am I
telling him that there is a point when you have to accept responsibility for your own actions and
you just haven’t reached it yet.  Could I say the same thing of myself.  Could I reason that I am
still a child in the Truth and do not have full  understanding of the Gospel,  therefore, my actions
are not yet accountable.  No, I don’t believe that is true.  Partly because I do not believe that any
modern mortal man has a full understanding of the Word, and that my ignorance does not change
the fact that the rules exist.  What is it we say in the outside world ....Ignorance of the law is no
excuse.  The same is true of God’s Law.  If  I do not know the answer, I know where to look to
find it.  Look to the Book.  But what about all of those small choices we make each day, the ones
that seem irrelevant to the greater scheme of our lives.  The “what shall we have for dinner
choice”, or the which way should I take to work” choice.   Each of these choices are important
whether we realize it at the time or not.  Because they place us at a junction.  Because they allow
us a choice that leads to a bigger choice that leads to a bigger choice and so on and so on.  I could
explain as such:  

The alarm goes off in the morning and instead of getting out of bed, I decide to hit the snooze,
Because I decided to hit the snooze, I am going to be late for work, 
Because I am going to be late for work, I forget to take my briefcase, 
Because I forget my briefcase, I am not prepared for a meeting, 
Because I am not prepared for the meeting, I get reprimanded at work, 
Because I get reprimanded at work, I am depressed, 
Because I am depressed, I spend the evening just watching television, 
Because I spent the evening just watching television, I do not do my readings, 
Because I miss my readings, I pull myself further from the influence of God and the Truth, 
Because I allow myself to become further from the Truth, I risk making unstable decisions
regarding larger choices. 
	
                 It’s a viscous circle isn’t it.  But what we don’t realize is that it was just not that first
decision that put us in jeopardy, it was every decision that was made in that long chain of events. 
We could have stopped the whole thing in it’s tracks had we just taken the time to choose
correctly at any given point.   And that’s the way life is, isn’t it?  We often need to backtrack and
change the choices we make to allow us to continue on the path that we desire to take.  We call
these backtracks mistakes.  But just because we have backtracked and corrected the mistake does
not erase it.  We still remember the choices we made and hopefully learn from them.  But again
that doesn’t erase them.  So we are still accountable for them.  
	But God, in his infinite wisdom, has a plan for the redemption of our misdeeds.  Numbers
are often symbolic in the Scriptures with the number seven standing for perfection, abundance,
and completion. For example, when Jesus told Peter to forgive "seventy times seven" times in
Matthew, that’s.
Matt. 18:21-22, which reads
	"Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me,
and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven
times: but, Until seventy times seven."; 
	Now Christ did not mean to forgive 490 times. He was telling Peter to forgive completely
and perfectly . We read in the prophecy of Amos (2: 4, 6) that seven was the number of times
God said He would forgive Israel.  Seven times......... abundantly and completely .  Now biblical
numerology may be a touchy subject for some of us.  To the Jew, numbers were descriptions
rather than mathematics as each number represented something.  From various Jewish sources on
the Internet I have found the following.........
	
One symbolizes new beginnings and unity.
	In genesis God takes one of Adams ribs to form Womankind; A new beginning and a  
	union.
	In Exodus, when Aaron built the alter, he was instructed to Once a year make an
	atonement on it with the blood of a sin offering. Ex 30:10. Symbolizing a time of
          refreshing
Two symbolizes witness and division.
	In Matthew we read that Two woman shall be grinding, one shall be taken.
And so on and so forth......
Three symbolizes divinity, heaven and God.
Four symbolizes earth and man.
Five symbolizes grace and favor.
Six symbolizes the world and is man's number; it falls short of seven; therefore, it is 	 	
imperfection.
Seven symbolizes perfection, abundance and completeness .
Ten symbolizes obedience, completeness of order, fulfillment of God’s plan.
	After all, seven was a pretty good number in biblical times.   So when Jesus tells us to
forgive Seventy Times Seven times, what I feel he is saying figuratively is that forgiveness is not
only complete, but complete according to God’s plan. 
	          Seven: 	 perfectly 
times 	Seven:	 completely
times 	Ten:	           at the completion of God’s plan. 
	What a wonderful concept.  Forgiveness.  
	But this is not an exhortation on forgiveness, we did that one already.  It’s about
accountability and shouldering responsibility for our lives and our choices.   All of these mistakes,
the little ones, are they then irrelevant?  Do we continue on with our lives as though our choices
don’t matter?  No, because, again, we must take responsibility for our actions and those things
which befall us, we need to learn from them.  Watch for the patterns into which we fall and start
changing our habits that lead to those turnings that lead us away from the Word of God. 
Awareness is our number one defense against our nature.  Let’s not take advantage of the Grace
we have been offered.   The conclusion should be obvious. Much suffering is caused by wrong
choices. The Bible offers guidance as to how we should live. Yet since the time of Adam and Eve
we have repeatedly spurned God’s instruction, fallen further away from God and his plan and
brought enormous pain and sorrow on ourselves.
	The Bible offers practical advice on virtually all aspects of life. Many of its principles
reveal how to avoid, and to some extent relieve our suffering.  We cannot live substantially free
from suffering until we reconcile to God and His commandments, and come back to that point
when we were aware of what was expected from us with every choice. “My son, do not forget my 
law, but let your heart keep my commands; for length of days and long life and peace they will 
add to you” Proverbs 3:1-2.  I have, through my fathers, forgotten His Law, and pray that though 
His grace and the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, I might be redeemed. Until then, I ask you, my 
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, for help in watching out for the pebbles for me and my family. 

An Exhortation given by
Bro. Sol L. Gorrell
June 10,2001
Westville Indiana Ecclesia