The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

Psalm 37:12-20, “The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes at him with his teeth.
13 The Lord laughs at him, for He sees his day is coming.
14 The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy, to slay those who are upright in conduct.
15 Their sword will enter their own heart, and their bows will be broken.
16 Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked.
17 For the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD sustains the righteous.
18 The LORD knows the days of the blameless, and their inheritance will be forever.
19 They will not be ashamed in the time of evil, and in the days of famine they will have abundance.
20 But the wicked will perish; and the enemies of the LORD will be like the glory of the pastures, they vanish– like smoke they vanish away.”

There is no way around it. When the wicked do wrong, they will inevitably pay the price for going against the LORD. The arrogance of the wicked always says, “I will triumph over the ways
of the LORD. Nor shall His people survive against me!” What has the LORD to say about that?

What does He say? “Their sword will enter their own heart. And their bows will be broken. Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked.” Why do the wicked always believe they will survive victoriously in battles against the LORD?
“Better is the little of the righteous,” the LORD says; “than the abundance of many wicked.”

Two teams aggressively take to the field to play. One seems so small, in comparison to the other. They look… like… H U G E! Those supporting the smaller team, hold their breath! “They’re going to make mincemeat out of our guys,” sideline supporters of the smaller team say. They almost wish they hadn’t come!

Then the game begins! Yet, to the amazement of that fearful sideline, those BIG guys were slow. The quarterback drills the ball toward the end zone, but there’s no one there! None of those BIG guys were fast enough to grab the ball. You know the end result. And you leave the field thinking, “Ya know, bigness isn’t everything!”

The LORD is our Coach! We’ve been expertly taught. No one knows “the game” like our Coach! Why are we worrying?
We have only one genuine concern: it is that we are on the Coach’s Team!

There’s an old story of a young preacher-boy. He had been asked by the old pastor to preach to the congregation that Sunday morning. The boy was acting like he was “somethin’ else.” When the time came, he swaggered up to the pulpit, winked at a few friends, uttered a few words of prayer and began his message. He had not be in the pulpit long before he confused his Scripture. He got his notes out-of-order and fumbled his way to the end of his sermon. In abject embarrassment, he left the rostrum and flopped down on the pew by the old pastor.

“What went wrong?” the young pastor asked his mentor. “Son,” the old pastor said, “If you had gone up the way you came down, you would have come down the way you went up.” That was the very problem with the wicked in our verses above. “Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked.”

Be righteous, and be encouraged!

Heartily in Christ,

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.
Springdale, Arkansas 72764
United States of America

“We never know that Christ is all we need until He becomes all that we have.” – Corrie ten Boom