LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW TO KEEP YOURSELF FROM HARM
Yesterday this post discussed keeping your home, your people, even your community safe - by applying Biblical principle1, referencing the storms of the end of 2022, and how they didn’t venture near my community.
Today we’ll look at Biblical principal for enjoying safety in the face of actual danger. There are many experiences I could recount, but I’ll tell you what happened just this past Wednesday night, February 22nd, 2023, while I was driving home to New York from Virginia, during bad weather and extremely dangerous driving conditions.
FIRST - WHY IS PREVENTION THE PRINCIPLE OBJECTIVE?
This is a very important point. Not long ago I read a ‘meme’ on a ministers social media page that said ‘God is into healing you’. The post got several ‘likes'. But is that statement Biblical? For starters, there is no such verse in the Bible, or any verse that reflects that sentiment. Rather, God is into preventing harm to begin with. Consider the following Scriptures
A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished. Proverbs 22:3
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Matthew 4:5,6,7
The devil’s ruse in Matthew 4 is similar to the meme. He tempted the Lord in so many words saying ‘don’t worry you won’t get hurt’. The meme says, ‘don’t worry, God will heal you’. Both bid to discount our spiritual responsibility to ‘foresee evil’ and hide ourselves, to rebuke dangers, not discount them. So both are an invitation to ‘tempt God’.
The fact is the Lord God prefers that men do not cause themselves harm, and that they watch out for potential harm by being ‘wise’, and by ‘asking at his mouth’. (Isaiah 30:1,2)
Let’s take this a step further. What if harm comes TO you unexpectedly, like the snake in the fire pit of Acts 28:5? The man in fellowship with God can- ‘shake it off’. And, as the Lord said in Mark 16, ‘IF you drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm you’.
Well, how does this play out, in, say for example - when you’re driving 7 hours through fog and then frozen rain and snow?..
On Tuesday and Wednesday this month, I was in Washington DC, and Leesburg Virginia. They had been enjoying some of the same unseasonably warm weather that we’d had up in New York. I was seeing croppings of Daffodils all over the District, and not a few Cherry Trees Blossoming… in February.
So when I hit the road around 3:30pm to head north, I had no idea that the weather in New York had already changed dramatically.
The first hint was in Pennsylvania. Just before the mountains on I-81, I saw neon signs along the highway warning travelers to stay alert for ‘heavy fog'. Fog meant the temperatures were dropping. My phone had given me a false read in PA of 54 degrees. That was likely the temperature still from Washington DC. Here with the sun going down in the PA hills, it was getting much colder. That brought the fogs.
And into the fog I came.
On the trip home I encountered 3 dangerous stages. First was a fog so thick in the PA hills, that the 18 wheelers were leaving the highway and lining the rest stops - blinkers on - waiting out the fog. Then came the freezing rain..
I knew that snow was also in the works waiting for me, because my son’s dad called around 5pm to say that it was snowing strongly in New York were we lived. A far cry from the weather I enjoyed in DC. My concern became, would there be snow over icy roads?
LIFTING THE FOG
On a trip by ship to Queensland, in the mid 1800’s the great man of God, George Mueller, prayed, and asked that God would be pleased to remove a pea thick fog, to permit the ship to continue on its way. The fog lifted.
There is nothing wrong with praying in that fashion. But I have made it my habit to endeavor to duplicate the Lord’s ministry - and use the authority he gave us - to bless him. (I love Christ’s reaction to the lone believer in Matthew 8:10, the centurion, a gentile, whose faith greatly impressed the Lord. Contrasted with his own disciples - who, on a boat when a storm arose, (he was trying to get some sleep) woke HIM UP. He rebuked the storm, and then rebuked them for not doing so themselves.)
The fog in the Pennsylvania mountains came in ‘waves’. For a while there, I was driving slower (all traffic was) but I pressed on. Finally, I got aggravated with the whiteouts, as Paul tired of the damsel in Acts 16:18, and rebuked the fog in the name of power, Jesus Christ, and commanded the cloud to lift. The fog remained. So I rebuked it again. The fog remained. So I rebuked it again. The fog lifted.2
I happened to notice the time at that moment on my dashboard. It was 6:44 pm... A smile from heaven.3
All the rest of the way through PA, was clear. Then I got to Binghamton and the rain began. At this point I called home to see what the temperatures were doing in Cortland. If it was raining in Binghamton, and the temperatures were dropping, it could get dangerous. Andre checked his phone, and reported it was 29 degrees in Cortland, and in Syracuse where we lived. Cold enough for the roads to freeze up.
So I started to sing praises.
I love to sing while I drive. Singing praises not only keeps me wide awake, it activates the Lord to work miracles. I could write a book with all the experiences of this…
I sang and praised and sang some more. Then I rehearsed aloud the Psalms of praise that I know by heart, like Psalm 23, and the first stanza of Psalm 18.. ‘I love thee O’ lord my strength’.
Why didn’t I pray against the cold weather? You see, there are times when there are so many factors at work, rather than try to figure out how to pray, or what to say, that’s when I praise God and let Him handle it, and/or I speak in tongues to let the spirit choose the words to pray.4 All of this has the final effect of keeping me fearless, and moving forward.
The worst thing to do, is be afraid. The NEXT WORST thing to do, is speak negatives. Praising God builds confidence, joy, and peace, and keeps your speech positive.
{It was around this time I happened to look over and see a highway mile marker - the only one I looked at on the 7 hour journey - as it whizzed past. The vertical sign read - 444. :>}
All the way from Binghamton to Cortland, the freezing rain continued, but something remarkable happened. The temperatures rose, and the roads never froze. When I arrived home the temperature in Fayetteville was 35 degrees. Up from 29 degrees about 3 hours before.
This never happens. It doesn’t get warmer at night upstate New York. It gets colder. On Wednesday night, it got warmer.
At the end of the day, by operating principle in this fashion, a man does not need to have emergency surgery after an accident, or ‘believe God’ for healing in sickness. The late great T.L. Osborne used to say, ‘sickness is a damnable thing because it keeps a man from serving God as he ought.’ That might be said of accidents, and other harmful events. By preventing harm we are also bringing to pass the words of our lord ‘Nothing can by any means harm you’.
There was snow all over the place in Syracuse, but there was no ice under the roads. I arrived safely home 1/2 hour ahead of schedule - at 9:44 pm.
VJCBingham
If you wonder how your principle applies to your community - An area, a community, your family.. are all blessed by the presence of a man or woman standing with God - whether they know it or not. Think Egypt while Joseph was in charge. Think of Laban while Jacob was in his employ.. Laban knew he was blessed by God while Jacob was around, so he didn’t want him to leave.
I also prayed for every driver on the road that night there, to get home safely.
The number 44 has wonderful spiritual significance. It is multiplied to me daily many many times in many different ways - some miraculous. I’ll write about it in the days to come.
‘.. for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered’. Romans 8:26