Real Social Security Series

Several years ago (July, 2008), Newsweek magazine printed a story about the most amazing exploit of tight-rope walker, Philippe Petit. They titled the story Man on Wire¸ and it described Petit’s secret plan in 1974 to extend a steel wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York. At the time, the towers were still under construction.

After much planning and practice, the day arrived. Petit and his fellow conspirators snuck to the top of the buildings, shot a wire across the vast, quarter-mile-high canyon that separated the North and South Towers, and Petit went to work. When all was said and done, Petit was on the wire for 45 minutes. Thousands gathered below to watch him. On each end of the wire, police waited for him to finish. Petit made eight passes before finally coming in. To this day he insists the stunt wasn't for publicity or even to see if he could do it. “The path is as important as the result,” he told a Newsweek magazine reporter.

Petit now lives in New York's Catskill Mountains. A wire stretches across his yard, and he still practices several hours a day. Petit told the same Newsweek reporter that it “never occurred to him to use a safety net” when walking the wire. Then he added something that really struck me funny. He said, “I never fall. But yes, I have landed on the earth many, many times.” (Jennie Yabroff, “He Had New York at His Feet,” Newsweek magazine, 7-28-08, pp. 50-51; www.PreachingToday.com)

I like that. To fall means you have failed, but to land on the earth means you can get back up again. So what do you do when you “have landed on the earth,” so to speak? What do you do to get back up again when you get in trouble? What do you do to recover when difficult times come? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 26, Genesis 26, where Isaac, an Old Testament Believer, found himself in a bit of trouble.

Genesis 26:1 Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. (ESV)

Isaac did exactly what his father, Abraham, had done 80 or 90 years previously. During a time of drought and famine, he went to Gerar on his way to Egypt in search of greener pastures. But God met him along the way!

Genesis 26:2-5 And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” (ESV)

This is the same promise God made to His father, Abraham, on Mount Moriah, the place where Isaac was nearly sacrificed to the Lord. It was a promise of land, seed, and blessing even in the place of famine and sacrifice. The question is: Would Isaac believe God, like his father did, despite his circumstances?

Genesis 26:6 So Isaac settled in Gerar. (ESV)

Isaac did indeed believe God. That’s why he did exactly what God told him to do – Isaac stayed in Gerar. Isaac trusted in the Lord in his time of trouble, and that’s what you need to do in your times of trouble, as well.

TRUST IN THE LORD.

Like Isaac, rely on God’s promises. Depend on God’s word, enough to do exactly what God tells us to do.

Pastor Dave Stone talks about a time when he took his family to a local swimming pool. He was down in the deep end by the diving board swimming around, and his four-year-old, Savannah, came tottering into the shallow end of the pool. She couldn’t swim then, but she was wearing those big orange “floaties.” There was no way she could sink with those huge orange floties.

Savannah came down the steps, and as soon as she got out there in the water, she said, “Daddy, I'm scared. I want to come where you are.”

Her dad chuckled at her naivete and said, “Savannah, it's a lot deeper down here.”

She said, “I don't care. I want to be where you are.”

“Okay, come on,” Dave said.

She began dog-paddling across the pool... three-foot... six-foot... nine-foot... 12-foot-deep water. When she came up to her dad, she grabbed his neck, and her look of panic gave way to relief. Next to her father she felt secure, and it made very little difference how deep or how dangerous the water was. (Dave Stone, “Keep the Dust Off the Highchair,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 143; www.PreachingToday.com)