In Genesis 35, God tells Jacob to leave where he's been living and go up to Bethel. Bethel is the place where Jacob had a vision of God when he was fleeing his brother Esau many years earlier. This time, God wants Jacob to build an altar there. Jacob immediately packs up his family and begins the journey.
Now, Jacob and his family and his herds and flocks were simply living in open country. Family clans were the functional forms of this day and region. Jacob and his sons had just had a major conflict with the Shechemites when Jacob's daughter, Dinah, was raped! This was a journey that put them at risk! They had little to no protection as they journeyed.
However, notice verse 5,
Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.
Moses is considered the writer of Genesis with the Holy Spirit guiding him in the process. How would Jacob have even known of this protection? God simply took the initiative to protect Jacob and his entourage to guard His interests!
The next verse tells us that Jacob made it to Bethel without any incident and built his altar before God. This was the moment that God gave him the same call that He had given to Abraham and Isaac; it is also the moment when God officially changed Jacob's name to Israel!
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How many times have we experienced the protection of God - and not known it?
When we moved from Akron to New Middletown, I made frequent trips back to Akron for various reasons. One wintry, snowy day, I was returning to New Middletown with a good six inches of snow on the road. I was overconfident because I drove a four-wheel-drive Explorer at the time. Suddenly, I began drifting toward the side of the road and a long, downhill bank. I cried out loud to the Lord: "Oh God!" And suddenly, it was as if an invisible hand took control of my vehicle and simply guided me back into my lane! I wish we had video of my face in that moment. I was SHOCKED! I was also safe!
I don't very often say much about my Mom - which is curious because she was the dominant influence in my life for the first seventeen years! She was a remarkable woman of faith and prayer. She believed in the providence of God more than anyone I ever knew. If we were delayed in starting out on a journey, she would simply console my Dad by saying: "Leonard, if we're running late, it's because the Lord is protecting us from something down the road." Many times, we'd see an accident and Mom would say, "See, Leonard, if we'd have left five minutes earlier, we might have been in that accident." This scenario replayed itself MANY times over! She believed it with all her heart!
Now, do bad things still happen in the lives of believers? Duh...of course they do. Remember, God is more concerned about our eternal souls than about our bodies or possessions. All of us are going to die at some point. But this does not deny that God does indeed look after His children.
If you doubt this, re-read Psalm 91. It ends with these words:
God says, “I will save those who love me and will protect those who acknowledge me as LORD. When they call to me, I will answer them; when they are in trouble, I will be with them. I will rescue them and honor them. I will reward them with long life; I will save them.”
The great reformer, Martin Luther understood this concept:
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