Matthew Stuck here from Verity Baptist Manila and I wanted to provide you a video on the
topic of Genesis chapter 49 verse 17. I want to explain this first. It says in Genesis
49 verse 17, Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path that biteth the
horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. So the Bible says that Dan is going
to bite the horse heels and the rider is going to fall backwards. So what Dan does
is Dan does not attack the rider, Dan attacks the horse, but by attacking the horse what's
going to happen is the rider is going to tumble down as well. And so what the Bible is showing
us is that Dan is going to destroy the rider, but the way Dan is going to destroy the rider
is not by attacking the rider, but by attacking the horse heels. And you say okay, what exactly
does that mean? Well recently I used this verse in a sermon, this was a verse that just
kind of opened up to me, where I realized that you know you don't necessarily have to
fight all battles head on. Sometimes there's a better, smarter, and wiser way to destroy
the rider than just to simply attack the rider. Now as a serpent, the serpent could attack
the rider and destroy the rider, but sometimes when you go right after the rider and make
it very clear what you're doing, you can actually cause more damage in the long run.
Sometimes it's smarter to go about situations by not attacking it head on, but instead attack
the horse heels with the goal that the rider is going to tumble as well. Look often times
when we want to get our way about something, we're upset about something, maybe you're
upset about your spouse or something like that, you could just like yell at them and
say you must do this, you're going to listen to my commands, you're going to listen to
my orders, but you know if you just go head on like that, maybe they will listen to you,
but you know what, you're probably going to have some repercussions. Oftentimes there's
just a much smarter way to go about it. And so what the Bible shows us is that we need
to have wisdom with how we handle certain battles. Some battles you don't want to fight
head on. It's not weak to choose a different way to attack. Sometimes there's just a much
smarter way to attack. And so I think this is a verse that we can use throughout our
lives because honestly you know in life we're going to have a lot of battles. And sometimes
what we need to do is just kind of think outside the box and say you know what, I want to destroy
the rider, I want this to change, but if I just go straight after the rider it's going
to end up causing me a lot of problems. And we should kind of think about stuff and be
wise and think about well what's the best way? Is there another way to get the rider
to tumble down and choose to attack in a way that's not quite as direct, that's not quite
as fierce or as intense, not quite in a way that's not going to end up getting you repercussions
coming back at you. But instead just kind of do it subtly, just go after the horse heels
and you know what, the rider is going to tumble as well. It's going to accomplish the exact
same thing. Thank you and God bless.