Our Daily Homily

Devotional For

January 31

      Take heed to thyself that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad. Genesis 31:24
      
      This visitation of God made a deep impression on Laban. He refers to it afterward as restraining him from injuring his runaway son-in-law. Jacob, too, was struck by it. It is very wonderful to find the Holy God casting the mantle of His protection around this crafty and deceitful soul. No doubt it was due to His covenant relationship with the family and race, of which Jacob was a most unworthy member (Genesis 30:13, Genesis 30:42). But if God thus interposed for Jacob, will He not much more interpose for those who desire to be His obedient children?
      
      God will lay an arrest on your persecutors. - Israel was rebuked because the exiles in Babylon thought they would perish before a man that could die, and the son of man who was as grass, and forgot their Maker, the Lord of heaven and earth. All around you the fire may rage; but you shall walk amid it unscathed, if only you trust. No weapon formed against you shall prosper.
      
      God will lay an arrest on trial. - His finger is always on our pulse; and the moment the pain becomes more than we can bear, He will stay it. His eye is ever upon His own.
      
      God will lay an arrest on the power of the evil one. - We shall not be tempted beyond that we are able to bear. There is always a thus far and no farther. "The Lord maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters." The Only-begotten of the Father keeps the sheep whom His Father has entrusted to Him. Not one of them can be devoured by the lion of hell. If only we believed this, we should be calmer, happier, even though circumstanced as Jacob. No need to altercate with Laban, but to look beyond him to the "Fear of Isaac."