Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
This children’s rhyme is often associated with a funny little figure of an egg sitting on a wall, lets pause and look at this a bit closer, there are often profound teachings we get from children’s books of nursery rhymes, there are sometimes deeper meanings behind the scene.
Think about this, here we have our own condition portrayed, and all our efforts are futile in trying to fix things in our world around us.
Look at the first line: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.” Does this not take us back to beginning of our own creation?
Here we have in this simple statement a question, was it a bright sunny day, or a cloudy day? We do not know. Just a statement that Humpty is sitting peacefully on his wall; we can appreciate the tranquillity around Humpty, but then the fall!
How often do we look back? Back to the time of innocent youth, do you remember times that seemed to be ideal? Before we fell? Before life took that turn? When all was right in your world, the time that everything around us seemed to be simpler.
Genesis 1:26 says: Then God said, “Let us make mankind in Our image, in Our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (New International Version).
When God put us on a wall we were in perfect harmony with God, we were in His presence, walking and talking with Him personally.
But then the next line in the rhyme, something happens to God’s creation and our lives take a turn we can only describe as a fall.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…”
There is no clue as to why Humpty fell, maybe he slipped or was pushed, here it is a mystery, but we know the reason for our fall. In the Bible we have the story of Adam and Eve wanting to be more like God, Satan told them the tree would make them just like God, just reach up and take the fruit. When we try to reach things that are beyond our grasp, you know, reach just a little further, you can do it, then the fall! And boy do we fall hard.
Genesis 3 tells us the story this way:
The Fall: 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.
5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (New International Version).
Here the fall brings the point where sin enters the world; this is the root of all our struggles and takes a major role in all sixty-six books in the Bible.
All of us have fallen, it is in the past, it is present now, it is for each one of us personal, we want what we want and we want it now, doesn’t matter that it is wrong, I heard someone say that everything they want is either illegal, immoral or fattening, at some point we listen to what Satan is telling us what to do and instead of listening to God, we go our own way, we reach for that fruit that is forbidden.
There are many warnings in the Bible, I will just quote two:
“Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).
”Therefore let him who thinks he stands be careful that he doesn’t fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). (New International Version).
Oops, we took a false step and now our world is suddenly downside up, this is not what we intended to happen, we reached for that bit of forbidden fruit, and now we are faced with consequences that our sin has brought to us, that we did not expect.
Suddenly we are just like Humpty all cracked up, lying there broken and in trouble and we know that unless a drastic event happens we will not be able to be put together again, this fall could be fatal.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
Eric Smith