Hot Pursuit Series

Then, after ten years, he was assigned to the United States where later he became Wycliffe’s USA director. But before leaving Peru, Bernie resolved to shoot the pistol just once.

He placed a tin can on a stump outside his house, backed away a few feet, took aim and squeezed the trigger, but all he heard was a “click” as the hammer fell on a dead shell. He tried it again – another “click.” A third time – a third “click.” In fact, every shell in the magazine was bad.

“Disgusted,” he says, “I went back into the house and got the extra box of bullets. One by one, I loaded them into the chamber. All I got was clicks. Fifty clicks… Every shell was a dud. For ten years I had put my trust in a gun that wouldn’t shoot.” (Bernie May, In Other Words, March 1990, p.8)

That’s the way it is when you put your trust in anything other than God, whether it’s a gun, your money, or even your relationships. At best, they prove to be useless sources of security just like any other idol. At worst, they can bring serious harm to you and your family if they take the place of God in your life. So if you’re looking for real security, don’t trust in a lie, and don’t trust in an idol. Instead…

TRUST IN THE LORD.

Rely solely and completely upon God. Look to Him and Him alone for your security. That’s a lesson Jacob is beginning to learn. Look at him as he finally levels with Laban.

Genesis 31:36-41 Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. Jacob said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? For you have felt through all my goods; what have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, that they may decide between us two. These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flocks. What was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. There I was: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. (ESV)

This is the first time in 20 years Jacob has told the truth to Laban. Before this, all Jacob did was resort to deceit and manipulation to get what he thought he deserved. Now, he is finally being honest; and now, he finally acknowledges the true source of his success and security.

Genesis 31:42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.” (ESV)

Jacob now knows that it was God who protected and provided for him all those years, and he begins to look to God to protect him in the future.

Genesis 31:43-47 Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day for these my daughters or for their children whom they have borne? Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I. And let it be a witness between you and me.” So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. And Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. (ESV)