Monday, July 21, 2014

A Real Defense

Ecclesiastes 7:12 KJV
For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.

I recently enjoyed a documentary on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Cassidy[1] was homeschooled by his Mormon mother and fairly educated, but he watched his father work himself to nothing trying to scrape out an honest living. As a teenager he met a small time cattle rustler named Mike Cassidy and decided there was a better life to be made in theft than in honesty.

Cassidy used his education to pull off bank robberies without shooting anyone and without anyone getting shot. Because of his "skill" he soon had a large gang of followers, including Sundance Kid.[2]

The gang was successful for some amount of time, never killing anyone and eventually pulling off a train robbery worth $50,000, the equivalent of one million dollars in our economy. Cassidy and Sundance enjoyed their share of the money, making a fine trip to New York and eventually moving to Argentina and buying a cattle ranch. Cassidy's money appeared to have provided for him what his father's hard work never did.

But the train companies never gave up looking for the thieves. Sundance wrote a letter home and disclosed their location. The Pinkerton Detective agency found their location and distributed their wanted posters throughout Argentina. Cassidy and Sundance were forced to leave behind their ranch and flee to Bolivia. There the two, desperate for money, robbed a bank but were not successful in escaping. The house they were hiding in was surrounded and a gunfight ensued. Morning time the locals made their way into the house to find that the two men had commuted suicide.

Money can provide a sort of defense and shelter. But money gained without the wisdom of The Lord provides only a shadow or illusion of protection. Only the wisdom of the Lord gives life both now and eternal. The man, like Cassidy's father, may work honestly to earn a living, but not knowing the true Saviour Jesus Christ, could only provide for life in the temporal world. The knowledge of Jesus Christ provides a defense from the consequences of sin, from the devil himself, from hell and from death itself, giving eternal life with Christ in Heaven.




[1] Whose real name was Robert Leroy Parker.
[2] Real name, Harry Longebaugh.

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