Ann Beck of North Carollton, Mississippi, talks about the days when her husband and she taught 2- and 3-year-olds in Sunday school. A Bible verse they helped the pre-schoolers memorize was Psalms 56: “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” Their preschool son, Mark, was one of their pupils.
Well, one stormy night, as lightning flashed and thunder boomed, the electricity suddenly went off. “I’m not afraid,” Mark assured his parents as they groped in the dark for candles and matches. Expecting him to quote the Bible verse he recently learned, Ann Beck proudly prompted him, “And tell us why you aren’t afraid.”
Little Mark simply replied, “Cause I’ve got my flashlight.” (Ann Beck, North Carollton, MS, Today’s Christian Woman, “Heart to Heart;” www.PreachingToday.com)
Who needs the Lord when you have a flashlight? If only life was that simple, but we all know that There are real dangers. There are real threats to our well-being that go way beyond being in the dark for a few hours.
It’s then that we wonder if trusting in the Lord is enough, so we go looking for the “flashlights,” the alternatives that might help just in case God doesn’t come through for us.
Most Americans love money, but we love something even more: security. According to a 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of U.S. adults prefer a job that offers better security over one that offers higher pay but less stability (33 percent). This is true not only when times are bad. It’s also true when times are good. A General Social Survey in 1989 – a year of economic expansion – produced similar results. (www.PreachingToday.com)
Most of us want our security more than anything else, but we wonder: Is God enough to provide that security? Can we trust Him to protect us from any real harm? Or do we need some sort of back-up plan just in case God doesn’t come through?
Well, Jacob is learning to trust God for his security, but he still carries a “flashlight;” he still has his back-up plan just in case God fails.
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 32, Genesis 32, where we learn right along with Jacob that we can depend on God to keep us safe from any real harm.
Genesis 32:1-2 Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God!” So he named that place Mahanaim (NIV) – which means “two camps,” i.e., Jacob’s camp and God’s camp.
You see, Jacob has just escaped being killed by his Uncle Laban (Genesis 31), and now he is returning home where his brother, Esau, had threatened to kill him 20 years previously. He is running from danger into danger, but along the way he meets some angels from God. Even so, Jacob is not sure that they’re enough. So…
Genesis 32:3 Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. (NIV)
Jacob sends his own messengers ahead just in case God’s messengers aren’t enough to protect him. The word for “messengers” is the same word in the Hebrew as the word for “angels.” And…
Genesis 32:4-5 He instructed them: “This is what you are to say to my master Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now. I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.’” (NIV)
The not so subtle message is, “Don’t mess with me, because I am a wealthy and a powerful man.” Is Esau impressed? Look at…
Genesis 32:6 When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” (NIV)
He is coming after Jacob with an army of men! Jacob’s back-up plan failed, so…
Genesis 32:7-8 In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.” (NIV)
Jacob forgets that he is already two camps (his and God’s), so he divides his own camp into two camps, hoping to provide some measure of protection, just in case God’s camp is not enough. Jacob is not sure he can depend on god’s protecting angels even though they are more than enough to protect him from his brother.
And we must be careful not to make the same mistake Jacob did. If we want to be truly secure, we can and we must…
DEPEND ON GOD’S PROTECTING ANGELS.
We can and we must rely on God’s heavenly messengers, who are there for us just as they were for Jacob. We can and we must trust in God’s angelic army that is available to every believer in Christ.
Hebrews 1:14 asks the question: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” (NIV) Of course they are. Matthews 18:10 makes that very clear. In a context where our Savior warns those who would cause any of God’s children to sin, He says, “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” (NIV) That is to say their angels are in constant contact with God to report on His children’s well being and to do His bidding in protecting those children.
In the Old Testament, we have a classic example of God’s angels protecting one of his servants. In 2 Kings 6, the King of Aram had “sent horses and chariots and a strong force” to the city where the prophet Elisha resided, intending to capture him.
Elisha’s servant cried out, “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?”
“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (NIV)
God had sent his invisible army of angels to protect Elisha, and we too have such an army available to us. Psalm 91 says, “[God] will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:11-12). God’s angels stand ready to protect all who trust Him.
Some time ago, People magazine, in an article entitled “Angels in America,” told a story about Hilary Russell and her parents, Susan and Richard. They were on a mission of mercy on a blustery winter day in 1978 as they drove from their Miami home to a deserted stretch of Miami Beach. Their English Springer spaniel, Siddhartha, had a bad case of fleas. “We had tried powders and baths but nothing worked,” says Susan. “So we asked people, and they said we should take him to the beach and get him in the salt water.”
But before Richard, a poet and English professor, and Susan, a photographer and onetime lifeguard, could unpack their blankets, Hilary, then six and an enthusiastic swimmer, made a beeline for the roiling surf and waded into trouble. Her parents yelled at her to come in, but it was too late. Hilary was caught in a riptide. “There was nothing I could do,” says Susan. “I couldn’t make any headway. I wasn’t strong enough. I thought, This child is going to drown because we can’t get to her. There was no one else around.”
She was wrong. Richard suddenly noticed a dark-haired man of about 30 standing about eight feet beyond Hilary. When the stranger saw she was in trouble, Richard says, he “just plucked her out of the water and held her in his arms.”
Hilary, as an adult, remembers little of her savior. “He was tan,” she says, “and the hair on his arms was dark, and it glistened even though it was cloudy out.” What astonished Susan was the effortless way the man strode through the waves, which reached only to his chest, although he seemed to be in deeper.
Back on shore, the man put Hilary in Susan’s arms. “I said, ‘Thank you. Thank God,’” recalls Susan. Adds Richard: “I remember him saying, ‘That’s okay,’ and he was smiling.” The Russells then embraced – but when they looked back, the man was gone.
Back home, Susan named him Hilary’s Angel. Later, she says, “It occurred to me that maybe he really was an angel.” Richard was convinced of it. (Peter Castro, Tom Gliatto, Samantha Miller, “Angels in America,” People, 12-22-97, p.79; www.PreachingToday.com)
My friend, stories like these abound all over the place. We as God’s people are assured of God’s protecting angels until the day He decides to take us home. And even then, the Bible assures us that God’s angels are there to carry us into heaven itself (Luke 16:22).
We as believers are never without a company of angels near us, just like Jacob had in his day. He wasn’t sure they were adequate, so he resorted to inadequate measures to protect himself and found himself “in great fear and distress” (vs.7). But even so, God’s angels were there to protect him and his family, and Jacob could have avoided all that stress if he would have simply trusted in God’s provision for him.
Let’s not make the same mistake he did. Instead, let’s depend on God’s protecting angels and so find peace in times of fear. Let’s depend on God’s protecting angels and find true security in Him. More than that, if we want to be truly secure, let’s also…
DEPEND ON GOD’S UNFAILING PROMISES.
Let’s learn to trust in God’s word. Let’s learn to rely on God’s assurances found all throughout the Bible. That’s what Jacob is learning to do here in Genesis 32. Watch him as he prays.
Genesis 32:9-12 Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’” (NIV)
This prayer starts and ends with a promise. Jacob is simply claiming the promises God made to him previously (Genesis 28:14; 31:3), asking God to keep His Word. At the same time, he acknowledges his own unworthiness. Jacob doesn’t come to God depending on his own self-righteousness. He knows he has none. He is a liar and a cheat, a manipulator and a deceiver, but he also knows His God is faithful. His God keeps His Word. His God will never renege on any promise He has made.
Even so, Jacob still feels like he has to help God out. Just like with the angels, Jacob is not sure God’s promises are adequate, so He devises his own scheme to appease an angry brother.
Genesis 32:13-15 He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. (NIV)
That’s more than 580 animals!
Genesis 32:16-21 He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds.” He instructed the one in the lead: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?’ then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.’” He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: “You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. And be sure to say, ‘Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.’” For he thought, “I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.” So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp. (NIV)
Jacob is trying to pacify his brother with all these gifts. He’s trying to buy love, but it was all unnecessary. When Jacob and Esau finally meet in the next chapter, Esau threw his arms around Jacob, kissed him and wept. Then he said to Jacob, “I already have plenty, my brother, keep what you have for yourself” (Genesis 33:4,9). Again, Jacob could have saved himself a lot of unnecessary grief if only He could have learned to trust God completely.
And that’s what we must learn to do. We must learn to trust that God’s promises are more than adequate to take care of us if we’re going to find real peace and security in scary times.
Just get on your knees and pray like Jacob did. Claim the promises of God for your situation. Acknowledge your own unworthiness. Ask God to deliver you, and claim the promises of God again.
Then, unlike Jacob, leave it in God’s hands. Don’t try to manipulate and scheme for your protection. Don’t try to buy love, because at best it is unnecessary and at worst it is resented. Just trust God to keep His Word to you, and you will experience His peace.
When that great missionary statesman, David Livingston, sailed for Africa for the first time, a group of his friends went with him to the pier to say their good-bys. Some of them were concerned for his safety and began to remind him of the dangers he would face in that “dark land.” In fact, one man urged Livingston to remain in England.
In response, David Livingston simply opened his Bible and read aloud Matthew 28:20 where Jesus said, “Surely, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
“That, my friend,” Livingston said, “is the word of a gentleman. So let’s be going.”
He trusted completely in God’s promises, and God never let him down.
We too can trust in His promises and so go wherever God sends us without fear. If we want real security and peace, then we must learn to depend on God’s protecting angels and His unfailing promises.
Many years ago, during a time of religious persecution, Frederick Nolan was running from his enemies in North Africa with no place to hide. They pursued him over hill and valley until at last he fell exhausted in a wayside cave. He was sure they would find him soon and kill him, but as he waited to die, he saw a spider weaving a beautiful web across the mouth of the cave.
His pursuers arrived and wondered if Nolan was hiding there. But on seeing the unbroken spider web, they concluded it was impossible for him to have entered the cave without disturbing the web. His pursuers went on and Nolan’s life was spared. Then having escaped, Nolan wrote these words, “Where God is, a spider’s web is like a wall. Where God is not, a wall is like a spider’s web.”
You can count on the Lord, so trust Him. Trust Him with your life. Trust Him with your eternal destiny. Trust Him enough to do what He tells you to do. Then you will be truly secure from now through eternity.
