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"A Cop’s Life 'By the Book'"
A Cop’s Life “By the Book” — you are probably wondering, “What does that mean really?” Well, let me pose a question to you. If God appeared to you personally and told you a plan that he had laid out for you and wanted you to perform would you do it? I suspect you would.

Well, in a sense, that’s exactly what God has done in my life. I want to share that with you tonight.

I guess I always wanted to be a cop. My father was a police officer. I was interested in the stories, the excitement, the guns as a little boy, you know — those things. Of course, that was pretty juvenile at the time. But as I got older, I was still interested, perhaps not in such a juvenile way, but law enforcement intrigued me.

And yet, I wasn’t sure that’s where I really wanted to go, or whether God wanted me to go there, which is probably more important. You see, I was a Christian as a teenager, and as I entered my adult life, I was really seeking God’s will. That phrase in itself says something. I guess I kind of thought God’s will was kind of hard to find. Maybe it was lost. And it was almost as if God was up in heaven as a cosmic Easter Bunny looking down and watching me stagger around and thinking something like this, “You’re getting warmer.”

Well, that’s not really the true picture. You see, God wants us to know what he wants us to do. And I was fortunate as a teenager to come into contact with an elderly missionary who came to church and preached a message from a couple of verses from the Bible — Proverbs 3:5-6, and it goes like this, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.”

Well, I don’t remember everything that missionary said but I remember the basic principles, the formula kind of tied up in this verse of certain conditions, three of them to be exact, and then a promise from God to direct you if you would follow those three conditions.

Well, as best I could, I followed those conditions as God gave me the strength, and I found myself in the Los Angeles Police Department. I’ll get back to that in just a minute, but even then I was still wondering — is this where God really wants me to be, a Christian in law enforcement? It’s kind of a tough business. Sometimes violence is involved. There are confrontations with the seamy side of life, and so I began to pray, “Lord, do you really want me here?”

And God answered. Oh, I’ve never had God appear to me. I’ve never heard his voice audibly, but he did speak to me through circumstances. Let me relate just one. During those early few months on the department it was as though I was always in the right place at the right time.

One particular story that I will relate today. We were going down the street and I was in my radio car, at that time working a one-man car, and I saw a man standing at a service station pointing across the street. He looked rather excited so I looked over following what he was pointing to on the other side of the street, and there was another man, jumping up and down and pointing. So I turned there and followed that man’s direction down Avenue 43 toward the Pasadena Freeway in the northeast portion of Los Angeles. As I approached the Pasadena Freeway, I saw another man pointing along Carlotta Boulevard, which is an access road along the Freeway. Three people so far pointing. So by this time my curiosity was up. I turned the corner and there I saw one man chasing another. The man in front had both hands filled full of money. The man behind him was dressed in a “76" gas station uniform. You know even a cop can figure that one out. That was a clue. I jumped out of my car and I began chasing the two of them. I passed up the one who was in the “76" gas station uniform. I figured he was all right.

And I got up next to this other fellow, and he suddenly turned around and faced me and threw the money in the air, and reached toward his belt for something. I guess legally I could have shot him because he was pulling something metallic out of his belt and I really didn’t know what it was. But I was so close that I realized I didn’t have to do that. I reached up and I hit him up along the side of the head with this thing we call a zap as he was pulling this metal object out of his belt. Of course, that made him suddenly sleepy and he fell down and went to sleep right there for just a moment. The money was going all over the street and the man from the gas station was trying to collect the money. Meanwhile I was putting the handcuffs on the suspect, and just as he started to come around, I opened the back door of the police car and I began to put him inside, and I heard my radio calling my unit number, “11-L-75, 11-L-75,” and I thought, “That’s me.”

They said, “44 tilt at the service station just occurred Avenue 43 and Figueroa.” That’s where we just came from. “The suspect was wearing black trousers.” I looked down — black trousers on this fellow. “A red sweater” — red sweater!

I reached over the back of the front seat, got the police radio, I keyed it and I said, “11-L-75: suspect in custody.”

You know, the operator was still giving me his description, and so she couldn’t understand it. We went back and forth a couple of times, and finally she accepted that. I got the gas station man in the car and we drove back to the gas station. And the man who was originally pointing, said, “It’s amazing — this modern police department. I just hung up the phone and there you were.”

Well, I didn’t have the heart to tell him what really happened. But it was like that nearly every day. And it was as though God was saying, “Yes, you’re on the right track. Just stay right here. I’ve got something planned for you.”

Well, God indeed did have something planned for me. Many things have happened since then. God wanted me here not just to chase bandits down the street. God wanted me here to expose a number of people who normally would not be exposed to his truth.

Yesterday I spoke at a large prayer breakfast in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and many people made commitments to the Lord. God has given me many opportunities, but the formula that brought me here is one I want to share with you today.

No. 1: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” That’s the first condition. And the word that is translated trust there means a great deal more than just simple belief. It means taking your belief to the point of commitment.

In Los Angeles we provide each of our police officers with a bulletproof vest. All of our police officers believe in the vest. It’s made out of kevlar. It’s only 1/4 of an inch thick. And it stops up to 44 magnum ammunition. It works. And we all know that. But on any given day in Los Angeles over 40% of our officers will not have the vest on for a variety of reasons. You see they have not taken their belief in the vest to the point of commitment.

But that is the very condition that this Biblical principle from the Book of Proverbs written by King Solomon (purportedly the wisest man that ever lived) is being referred to here. The commitment to take your belief to the point of action. The wearing of the vest in this case. Or in the case of God, a bit more than just saying, “I know you’re up there and I believe in you.” It’s trusting in him, committing your life to him, inviting him to come into you in his Spirit, and making you the kind of person that he wants you to be. I had to do that.

Secondly, he says, “And lean not unto your own understanding.” Of course, the opposite is to lean on someone else’s and by the context which it is in, the first principle being, “Trust in the Lord,” I believe what he is saying — at least what it means to me — is not relying on my own wisdom to figure things out but rather turn to God for his wisdom.

I believe God’s wisdom is in this book (the Bible). I study this book. I find great help in studying this book. I believe it is God’s word for us today.

Well, I have to relate another story to illustrate this point. Many years ago in my career as a lieutenant, I was the commanding officer of our freeway squad. As you know, we have many freeways in Los Angeles. Some people that visited out there, do not see them as freeways — you think of them as the nation’s largest parking lots. But they really are freeways certain times of the day, namely three A.M. in the morning. During these times we do need high-speed cars to pick up speeders who are really going fast. It is not unusual to get people going over 100 miles an hour.

And to get them at this time in our history we had specially built Oldsmobiles with four roll bars on the inside, welded into the car, actually putting the officers into a steel frame. There were special extensions on the instruments because the officers were held in under pressure of airplane seat belts, and special headrests with pipes going into the back seat.

When I first took over the squad, I went to one of the sergeants in the squad, Larry DeKamp. By the way, Larry was an exfighter-pilot from World War II, and I think that’s one of the reasons he was drawn to these cars because he thought he was still flying planes.

Well, Larry took me out on a ride one morning to demonstrate the car’s ability. I’ll never forget going out to Western Avenue, the on-ramp to the Santa Monica Freeway, and at three A.M. we are sitting there with this engine throbbing and the car literally rocking from the force of this high-speed engine. We were there maybe two to three minutes when all of a sudden a blur went by us, and he said, “There goes one.” And he put his foot somewhere up in the carburetor, and down the ramp we came, and by the time we were on the freeway, we were already doing 90 miles an hour. I was looking at the StewartWarner police clock up on the dashboard, and by the way, I found out why they have those gigantic headrests with the pipe going down into the back seat. I felt like I was going through three g’s. I’m sure it wasn’t that, but as we came on to the freeway already doing 90, we accelerated up to about 143 miles an hour. And we finally caught the Corvette. We backed off and got a clock on him. He reached up and hit the button and it froze at 122 miles an hour.

When we pulled them over — by the way, it took about a mile to get them over, the two young men jumped out of the car and came running toward us. Well, I was in all these airplane seat belts and I had a little trouble getting out. I wasn’t used to them yet. I thought — Great Scot, we’re being attacked, and I can’t get out of my belt here.

Well, we weren’t being attacked. They were all excited. They had smiles on their faces. They came back and said, “What in the world have you got under the hood of that thing?”

And so — we accommodated them and showed them. Then we hooked them up with the handcuffs and put them in the back seat and took them off to jail. You see, we have a policy in L.A. that if you’re going over 100 miles an hour, it means jail time.

After we had them processed, we were sitting back in the coffee room and I was kind of coming down from the excitement of the chase, and I said, “Larry, you’ve done something to that engine.”

He said, “Yeah, how did you know?”

Well, it was pretty evident. I said, “You know, I’m a little concerned about that, Larry.”

He said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Well, you know, I’m the watch commander of this outfit now and I’m concerned that we may have done something to this engine to cause it to perhaps be unstable, maybe even explode. It happens at drag races all the time — those hot engines.”

He said, “Not, to worry, Lieutenant, not to worry.”

I said, “I am worried. I am worried about vicarious liability. What happens? I’m in charge. I can just see the headlines ‘HOT SOUPED UP HOT ROD POLICE CAR EXPLODES — FAMILY OF FOUR KILLED IN HEAD-ON COLLISION.’”

He said, “You don’t have to worry about that. You see, we have consulted the manufacturer.”

I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “We’ve talked to the Oldsmobile people. They made the engine. They told us just how much we can adapt the engine. Just how radical the cam can be. Just how many thousandths we can mill off the heads. They told us. They made the engines and so we haven’t gone beyond what the manufacturer has said we can do.”

Doesn’t that make sense? My heart was kind of put at ease when I heard that. I said, “I guess I do have a little assurance.”

I believe that is what the Lord is trying to tell us here in the second condition. “Lean not unto your own understanding.” Trust in the manufacturer. Have him tell you how far you can go without “blowing the engine.” Well, that makes a great deal of sense to me — I hope it does to you.

In Psalm 119:73, the Bible says, “Lord, you made my body. Please give me the sense to heed your commands.”

And I believe that the second step in knowing God’s will is relying on this written word. I like to refer to the Bible as “the manufacturer’s manual” given to us by the very creator himself, one who has plans for us, one who has things for us to do, who gives us commands and restrictions. Not so we won’t have fun, but rather so the engine won’t blow, so we can really get the most out of life.

In John 15:1-11, you notice it closes by once again the Lord giving his command to his disciples to “heed my commands.” In f act, he said, “If you love me, you will follow my commands.” And then he explained why.

In the 11th verse of John 15, he said, “These things have I spoken to you.” And by the way, that was the fifth time he told them to keep his commands. He said, “These things have I spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.”

Well, that’s very practical to me as a cop. Cops are practical. I like to trust in one who really knows about this engine, about life, about his creation, and go by his commands.

The third condition: “In all your ways acknowledge him.” In the L.A.P.D. we now have a new communications system. We call it “X”, the emergency command and control system. It provides a computer terminal in every police car with a video monitor where we can dispatch the calls to the officers digitally and they appear on the screen. In addition to that we have a number of buttons which the officers must press in order to keep in constant contact with headquarters. When they receive a call, they must press a button to acknowledge that they have received the call. It tells the computer they have received it so the computer doesn’t send it again. When they are on their way to a call, they press another button because maybe when they received the call, they were in the middle of issuing a citation or something. And so they press the button when they are on the way. When they arrive at the call, they press another button indicating “We’re now here handling the call.” And then when they are clear and ready for another call, they hit another button which says, “We’re ready for another assignment.”

There is the need for constant contact so the computer knows who is available, what they are doing, and how to distribute the workload. In a way, that is what God is asking us to do. He is saying “Don’t ignore me. Acknowledge me. Ask me my advice.” In fact, he puts it this way, “In all your ways, acknowledge him.”

This is where it gets practical for me now. As I was in college and getting ready to go into a career, I began doing those three things. First of all, I had committed my life to Christ. I had trusted him with all my heart. Secondly, I was studying his word to find out the commands from the manufacturer. And finally, I was acknowledging him and asking him, “God, I’ve got some decisions to make. I need to know if I should go on in college. And I need to know what job you want me in.”

I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t sure how God was going to respond to that request, but I knew he would somehow because he promised that he would. He said, “I will direct you.” In fact, in the Hebrew, it says, “Your path will be straight.” Easy to follow — right out in front of you. You won’t be able to miss it.

I guess as a teenager, I kind of expected something more dramatic than this. I kind of expected maybe a weird voice in the night, “Vernon, I want you to be a lawyer ...” You know. But that isn’t really how God works. At least, he hasn’t worked that way in my life. I’ll speak for myself. But, you know, in a very real sense, God did speak to me. He spoke to me through desires, and abilities, and lack of abilities.

The first step I took in seeking a career was blocked. I was very disappointed. I was bitter. I was angry at God. I thought that he was not answering my prayer. But, you know, God gave me that “no” to get me where he wanted me. He wanted me in police work. I had chosen something else first. Then, I was accepted by the L.A.P.D. where they only accept 4 out of every 100 that apply. I had whatever they wanted to put me in that line of work. I had the desire, and I had the abilities, and I found myself walking a beat. Later on, I went to a radio car. Finally, working as a detective and narcotics investigator. Later I got into management. And finally, after many many years, I ended up as the Assistant Chief of Police of one of the nation’s largest police departments. And I thank God for that. He gave me great opportunities, good supervision, good guidance a lot of what many people refer to as “the breaks.”

But you know, I know it’s a little different. God was speaking to me through circumstances, through abilities, through lack of abilities. God speaks sometimes very commonly to us in ways that are so common we may not really realize he is speaking to us.

My relationship with God really began when I recognized that I was imperfect. I had to come to the step of confession. Now we in police work know what that word means. I’ve been in the interrogation room with many suspects and accused them, and many of them have denied it. Later on, my investigation showed that they were telling the truth. They didn’t do it.

But some of them, when they are guilty, will admit it. Not all of course, but many do. They want to tell someone. They won’t even sign a statement. They won’t even go on videotape. They confess. They say, “I agree with you, detective. I did it. I killed the lady. I want to get it off my chest.”

We need to do that with God. At least, I needed to. I needed to tell God, “God, I am guilty as you say. I am a sinner. I know what your word says — ‘For all have sinned.’ I realize I am not perfect.” The Bible goes on to say, “For all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.” We don’t measure up to his acceptance of perfection.

Secondly, I had to repent. I read in the 13th chapter of Luke where Jesus is talking to his very disciples and he said, “Even you,” he’s talking to his disciples now. “Even you, if you don’t repent, will go to hell.”

I needed to repent. So I looked up to see what that word means. And I found that that word “repent” which is used in the New Testament literally means, “to turn around 180 degrees.” We all begin by going our way in life. I have a little grandson. He’s the cutest little guy. But guess what, many times he has his way he wants to do things. I didn’t have to teach him that. Neither did his parents. It came natural. He wants to do it “my way.” “Myself,” quite often he will say.

I was like that. I guess you were like that. And I needed to turn from that way and say, “God, I not only want to believe in you and trust in you, but I turned from my way and I don’t just want to ask you to help me as I go my way.”

Many of us do that. “God, would you come down and be with me and save me from hell and make my life successful,” and then we add, “as I continue going my way.”

But the Lord Jesus said, “Except you repent and turn from your way ...” What that really means, I guess, is saying, “God, I’m willing to turn around and go your way.” That’s what it means to me.

You know, there was a time when I had to tell God that — that I’m willing. I don’t know fully what it means yet, Lord. I was still at that time reading the Bible and trying to find out what his will was. But I told him that I was willing to do that — willing to go his way.

Finally, I had to receive him. The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “I’ve been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

You say, “Would you please explain that.”

I’m sorry — I can’t explain it. But I can tell you it works. Just like I can’t explain this process of television which we’re enjoying tonight together. But it works, doesn’t it? And I know this — when I invited him to come in, he did come in. He is there. He does live within me. I received him. I guess you could say, “I put on the vest.” I took my belief in him to the point of commitment.

Did you know that God has a plan for each life? In the Book of Jeremiah, he puts it this way, “I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

And the formula is just as simple as the outline I presented to you. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways (even the little things), acknowledge him.” And then this great promise, “He shall direct your paths.”

God bless you.     

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