Address—Stephen Rule
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Some brother would start #238 for us, we appreciate it.
Our Shepherd.
People are consideration of my heart.
What do you mean by one of the one?
Umm.
Hotel Beauty.
I.
'M shocked we didn't see everything I am all I have no.
Umm, I think it's like I'm not looking forward to everything and praying with all your mom's that I'll be.
Turn with me to.
Malachi Chapter one, this is not where we're going to spend our time, but it it captures the spirit of what's on my heart.
Reverse two Malachi chapter one and verse 2.
I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet you say wherein us thou loved us.
Was not Esau Jacob's brother? Saith the Lord?
Yet I loved Jacob.
Sorry, I, uh, don't think it's nervous, but it might be, I thought, but in tears 10 times or so over the last couple days as I've been enjoying the life of Jacob. It's amazing. It's just so full, so rich. My prayer is that I don't get caught in the byways of all the interesting things and the wonders that are there, but that the Lord brings out to your heart and to mine the God of Jacob.
You know the God of Jacob, that expression.
00:05:06
In his word, call himself the God of Jacob. Perhaps there are many here that relate in a practical way the Jacob and Jacob's life. Enter into that. I just want to encourage your heart this afternoon to come to know the one.
Who was Jacob shepherd? Now read the half of the burden. I'm going to save a good part to the end, and I'm going to give you the A theme so you don't get lost. I'm going to turn to a verse toward the end. I hope we'll come back here in Jacob's life. It's just an unbelievable full story.
Well, we've turned to it in in Genesis 48.
She turned there.
Reading through the life of Jacob two days ago, it took me about an hour and a half or so just, and that's pausing to stumble and looking and all and then wake up and keep moving because it's so it's a wonderful story. So there's so many things there. I would strongly encourage you to read it. And one other word is we begin. Just finished my personal reading yesterday, the book of Malachi, reading through the prophets ending with Malachi.
Enjoyed the verse?
But if you read the two together, the life of Jacob with the prophets, it's a beautiful, beautiful connection and it's full of all kinds of themes.
For the Lord's help, I wanna focus this afternoon on one and probably stumble on a few other beautiful byways, but that one is captured in this verse. Genesis 48.
And verse 15 Read 15 and 16.
And he blessed Joseph, and said, This is Jacob. He blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my father is Abraham. And Isaac did walk.
But God, I'm gonna switch over to Mr. Darby's translation in verse 15.
The God that shepherded me.
All my life long to this day.
Not a beautiful statement.
All my life long, you know the story of Jacob, your mother, your grandmother, your father, your son, your school teacher taught you the stories from the life of Jacob years ago and you've enjoyed it. This is Jacob looking back over that life and he says every single day of my life.
My shepherd was with me.
Every single day of my life. I love that word in this verse here.
All my life long until this day.
You look at that life and you say, well, we'll come to that later. I don't wanna get distracted. Turn to the beginning. The Genesis, chapter 25.
Genesis chapter 25.
So it's a theme that'll come up again.
Many themes in his life, but Genesis chapter 25 and verse 21.
And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord was entreated of him. And Rebecca his wife conceived, and the children struggled together within her.
And she said. And again, I'm going to switch over.
Two verse Umm well, it's good here the children St. struggled together within her and she said, if it be so, why am I Thus she went to inquire of the Lord. This is the unborn Jacob and his mother is going to the Lord about her unborn son. But I want you to think of this in the term in these terms.
This is a spiritual ultrasound. Sure, if you're pregnant. I don't.
No, for a moment. Some of the things I say are just not gonna have enough context. I don't for a moment suggest you don't get an ultrasound. But I think it's beautiful right here that the spiritual ultrasound shows so many things you can't get any other way. You can't get what she finds out any other way than from the Lord if you're young parents.
You have a small child. You have a small child coming. You got a small child in your arms.
A small child in your heart that you're looking forward to. I strongly encourage you to go to the Lord for your spiritual ultrasound. And here's what she finds. Verse 23. And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people.
00:10:25
And the elder shall serve.
The younger.
The elder shall serve the younger. We're gonna finish there at the end.
Here's the vision from before this child is born. The elder shall serve the younger. I just want to encourage you in this. And the burden of my heart is that you'll see the God who's walking with you every step of your life. We're going to go through this life from birth to death, and everyone in this room sits in between those two.
Uh, in fact, there's some in here that are unborn. You're still included in what we just read.
From before that moment of birth to the moment of death. Oh, Lord is walking with you. He's looking into every single detail of your life, and it's for good. It's for your good. It's for your blessing. We're gonna look at the end when Jose, when Jacob looks back over the whole thing. We only read part of it. There's more to what he reflects on at the end.
But here, from the very beginning, there's this elder. So serve the younger Lord a purpose in this life. And he had a love for Jacob. I want to encourage you that there's a purpose.
In your life and that the Lord Jesus has a personal love and interest and care for you personally, for you as an individual. You'll see there's many, many faces and you'll have to enjoy most of them on your own in the life of Jacob, but many might touch on a place where you're at at the moment. So I want to step forward and keep moving to the 27th chapter.
OK.
27th chapter.
And by the way.
I the life of Jacob is packed with the importance of the government of God with self judgment of reaping what we sow in a negative sense and so on. That's that's an important part of the story. It's just not the part the Lord laid on my heart this afternoon. As you read through it, the Lord can lay that part on your heart. It's a very important part of the story. It's very much there. It ties in so beautifully with the prophets with all that Israel needs to learn and when the Lord refers to.
19 Genesis 27 and verse 19. And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau, thy first born. I have done according as al badest me. Arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that I found it so quickly, my son?
And he said, Because I'll watch carefully the Lord.
My God brought it to me. The Lord thy God brought it to me.
I don't believe we can say exactly how old Jacob was at this moment, but if you flip back to the last chapter, we can say he was a minimum of 40 years old.
You may be in this room, you may be 40 years old, you may be approaching your 40th birthday. If you want to do a little math, I'm going to try to avoid most of that because it's a distraction perhaps, but Jacob lived 100 and 4740 years old.
Was over 1/4 of his life and that's a minimum that he is in this chapter. You don't know how long your life is, but perhaps it's over a quarter over.
And when you talk about God in your own heart, I'm not saying with your lips, but with those that are close to you, those that know you best. What does Jacob say when it comes to that point? He says Jacob says.
Gotta read the exact words.
00:15:01
Sorry, in the 20th verse.
Umm lost it here on the page.
That's umm, because the Lord thy God brought it to me. It doesn't say the Lord my God. How could he? He was lying to his father. He was far from the Lord at that particular moment. But just notice here.
But Jacob reflected on this moment at the end of his life, and he says my God was with me at that moment. When he looks back at this moment at the end of his life, he says my God was there with me and he had something to show me in this moment. Jacob had 17 years at the end of his life to reflect, to go back, to look at this period of life. And he says my God was here at this moment, but he didn't know it.
And perhaps in your particular moment in your life, your father.
As a God and you can talk to your Father about that God, but it's not personal in your own soul.
There's a patient Shepherd. He's walking in your side at the moment. That patient Shepherd wants you to know him. Turn to the next chapter.
The next chapter, what we're going to read Curves, I believe sometime later, Genesis chapter 28.
We do know how old Jacob was in this chapter, you can find it out.
You can trace back. You wanna go through that Afterward, I'll go through it with you, but I'll give you this much.
Jacob was over half of his life at this point.
Jacob was past the midpoint of his life in this chapter when he heads out for Payton Aram. When he heads out for Uncle Laban's house, over half of his life is gone. Let's take stock of what Jacob has. Jacob has thy God, not my God.
Jacob has We won't have a time to look at the verse. Jacob has a staff.
Jacob has no wife. Jacob has no children. Jacob has nothing for Sam.
He says when he meets the Angel that he, when he reflects back on, he says when I cross that river going out, I came out with a staff and later he says I came back with multiple companies. So here as he goes out and maybe you look at your life and you say I'm over half the way through my life.
And what do I have?
Lord hasn't brought me a wife. Lord hasn't brought me children.
Yeah, I'm supposed to have.
A better place than my brother. He saw my brother Esau. He's been married for 37 years. Sorry I gave you the number. My brother Esau has been married for 37 years. My brother Esau has children. He's not just my brother, he's my twin.
Where is the word of the Lord?
Where is he?
That's where your heart sat at the moment.
Wanna encourage you?
So you could look at this moment, this moment in his life, and he said my shepherd was with me in this moment. My shepherd was at work in my soul, bringing me to know him, to know him personally. There's a work that the Lord's doing in your heart. If you look at it with your eyes, looks like that's another thing you can look at. You have to look at it on your own. The word, the number of times that Jacob sees this and Jacob sees that, and Jacob sees the other.
Jacob had throughout most of his life, he's looking at this and he's looking at that, and even later in his life he hears the words of Joseph. But when he sees the wagons.
His heart changes.
But that's not how Jacob's story ends. And if you're in the middle of your story and you're looking out and you're saying, well, I see this.
But I don't see God want to encourage your heart that the God who walked with Jacob every single step of his life, if you know him as your Savior, he's at work in your life and everything that he's doing in the moment, at the moment in your life is for a purpose. And we'll see some of those purposes at the end of Jacob's life. But here in chapter 28, we'll read verses 3:00 and 4:00.
And Isaac speaking to his son.
Arise, go to Peyton Arum, to the House of Beth you will, thy mother's father, and take there, oh, take thee a wife from them for the daughters of Laban, my mother's brother.
00:20:11
And God Almighty, bless thee, make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people.
What an encouragement. What an encouragement from his father. Where's his father saying to him, you know, Jacob, you deceived me. You know Jacob, you put on an elaborate show to get the blessing. You deceived your brother Esau to get the birthright.
Jacob, you don't deserve anything. No, Jacob didn't deserve anything. But that's not the point. Isaac knew God had revealed himself to him as almighty God. God had revealed himself to Abraham as almighty God. Jacob will learn God as almighty God.
Let me pause for a moment. Take a brief digression. So it's beautiful study. Take it up on your own. There are at least 4 characteristic names of relationships in the Word of God.
Where God specially places himself in relationship with His people, this is the first of them, the Almighty God.
The second is Jehovah with his people, Israel. The word Jehovah has already been used throughout in this book of Genesis up to this point, but he reveals himself in a relationship.
With his people under Jehovah, he reveals himself as the Most High and he reveals himself in particular relationship as Father. We're not looking at that Father relationship at the moment, because the burden on my heart is that you will know the character of the person who's walking with you. But as an aside here at the moment.
Jacob, I'm sorry, Isaac takes what he knew, the characteristic relationship of God.
And he expresses it, He speaks it to his son's life and what you know, if you're a parent, your grandparent, you have a father role or a mother role in the assembly, whether or not you have physical children, What you have in your heart of God is what you have to give, what you know. And that relationship that God has brought you into is what you have that you can pass on to another. And here.
Does it with his son. To me it's sweet. But Jacob hears these words.
He's going to know the reality of it before his life is over. The Lord completes what he starts. If he started a work in your life, he will complete that work. And so he that work here in Jacob's life, even though it's over half over, he's at work.
A little further down in the chapter just to read it. Jacob's on his way now.
No, it's not the voice of his Father, it's the voice of God.
Verse 13 And behold, the Lord stood above it talking about the vision and the Jacob's ladder and so on. It's got a millennial figure. There's wonderful teaching in it.
Verse 13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. No, it doesn't say that.
No, it doesn't say that he's going to hear the truth of that in his life. He's not ready for it. He's got to go through certain experiences before he's ready to hear those words, before God can delight to use them over and over again.
So the verse says, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.
The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed, and thy seed shall be. And he goes on. And there's a lot more here. I want you to notice this. That's another important lesson to my soul, meditating on the life of Jacob.
Your life, in my life, is not all about us.
Isn't that beautiful?
Your life is not all about you.
Wherever you get your sources of information in the world, the world is all about maximizing you.
Maximizing your pleasure, maximizing your legacy, maximizing your impact. Maybe some of them are good things.
But a very important lesson that Jacob has to learn in the course of his life is that it's not all about Jacob.
00:25:06
There's the God of Jacob. There's all of that.
But right here I say that in this context, because in verse 13 it says To thee will I give it, and to thy sea.
And till they see there's lots there, there's the promise of the great nation and so on. You can't have that without children. So there's of course that. But the point that I want to emphasize morally to your heart and mind, and that's this, the experiences you went through yesterday or a week ago or a month ago or perhaps last year that remain unexplained.
They don't have an answer yet.
When you get to glory, perhaps in this life you'll see part of it, but when you get to glory, you're going to find out that it was for a whole lot more than you.
It had a whole lot more than you than you.
So, Jacob, it's expressed in this way to the I give it until I see now the land is very important. That's another theme. If you want to trace it out, you can trace it out for yourself. There's no time to pause for it.
But if you're reading it on your own, the land is vitally important in the life of Jacob. A little bit further down and verse 17 or verse 16.
And Jacob awake out of his sleep, and he said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.
And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place? This is none other than the House of God, in this the gate of heaven.
Bethel, the House of God, how dreadful is this place?
You know.
The Lord was going to bring Jacob back here. You know that. He's going to bring Jacob back here, but it wasn't just going to bring Jacob back here. He's going to bring Jacob back here and show him not just the place, but the person.
Not just Befell, but El Bethel, not just where he had spoken to him, but the person who was there. That's the burden on my heart that each of us would know the person that's walking with us and to enjoy, not to shake our heads here and say, oh, poor Jacob, if only he learned when he was younger.
You say that about any of our lives. Well, rather to say this.
That's shepherd Walk with Jacob until then.
That shepherd walked with a person who made those mistakes.
I know that person is walking with me.
He has a purpose of good in my life and he's going complete. Let's move forward.
Chapter 32.
Skip over the intense period of Jacob's life.
There's a ton of experience there, and a ton of experience I dare say not a single person in this room will ever go through.
But he had an intense time.
Thankfully none of you will go through it. I certainly haven't in that period of time we just skipped over.
Jacob had multiple He had 12 Children born in a period of just over six years. He had four wives, multiple of them pregnant at the same time.
You have to calculate it out for yourself. He had wives bickering with each other. He had wives bickering with him.
And in that period of time, he was intensely busy with his job. He was out all night. He pulled all nighters and his work over and over again who come in at night tired. And there were the bickering wives.
Now we come to this chapter here.
Jacob's 2/3 of the way through his life.
Trace it out. I believe it's given to us in scripture. This isn't something that comes from tradition. In this chapter here is 97 years old.
I doubt there's a single person in this room.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Our sister Dorothy Thompson, there's a person I met this past Lord's Day. He's 102. Maybe there's somebody in here that's 97 plus, but I think we're all under that number.
Jacob's about to learn a vital lesson, so if you haven't, you haven't learned it yet. We're probably not there yet. That's OK.
00:30:06
There's a shepherd who waited longer to teach Jacob this lesson and.
Wants to show it to you now. He's not wanting to wait. But you're gonna learn it younger than Jacob if you learn it today. And it's here at the end of the chapter. Read from verse 24. And Jacob was left alone and they wrestled a man with him till the breaking of the day. We saw that he prevailed not against him. He touched the hall of his thigh and the hollow.
But Jacob's thigh was out of joint.
Because he wrestled with him and he said, let me go for the Daybreak. And he said, I will not let thee go.
Except that was.
I will not let that go.
So it's a blessing.
Think it was now hanging on the one who came to meet him.
It's not working. For that blessing. You can look at all the things he did when he was in Laban's house. He had to go to the University of Uncle Laban, the master of deceit, to learn his own heart.
He's graduated.
He was on his way home.
On his way home, he was mad.
Not by messenger, I believe by the Lord Himself. He clings to him. Bless me.
You know, maybe you were raised in a home or it wasn't just the Bible that held guilt, Hedges.
Where's your parents might have.
You carried with you, maybe it wasn't your parents, it was someone else in your life. And you carry with you that feeling that need to perform and if you performed up the spec and if you made it to the standard, God would bless you.
Take nothing away from the very important I don't, I said at the beginning, there's comments I'm going to make along the way that don't contain enough context, and this is one of them. But I want to keep to that main lesson and that's this when God teaches his purpose in teaching.
We need to be brought to self judgment. Jacob sure needed it.
But his purpose in teaching, So what we'll see at the end. And Jacob gets to this vital lesson here, and that is, I want God to bless me. I can't earn it. You know, he's going to forget this lesson over and over again. But this is an important moment in his life. The dawn breaks. The dawn breaks as he learns this lesson. You may have learned a lesson in your life from the Lord. You really learned it from the Lord. He's the one that taught it to you and you forgot it.
That comes ahead in Jacob's life, but there had to come a moment when it was really learned, and Jacob really learns it here. My God wants to bless me.
I don't have to earn it, I don't have to get there on my own.
So you're deadly doing's down. Oh, that's a gospel song. Yes, it is. It's not just the gospel song.
For the Jacobs in the room, it's for all of us who want to make progress in the flesh.
Bless me, and he is, but he doesn't learn everything yet. It's not all here. He wants to know. He receives this new name, a Prince with God, the Israel, a Prince with God, Wonderful new name, fantastic thing. He learns it, gets it, and he wants to know God's name.
He wants to know more personally. There's more things he has to learn. And you know, maybe you've reached a point in your life, maybe you're 2/3 of the way through. I trust we're 99.99% through and the Lord is going to come before this is over. But I'm referring to the natural side of things perhaps as the natural vigor. You're 2/3 of the way through. And there were still many more lessons for Jacob to learn. And so he asked for God's name.
It's not given to him yet.
Because he wasn't where he needed to be. He wasn't where he needed to be to learn more. So a shepherd is going to bring him there the next chapter.
Can't give you a age for Jacob on this. I don't believe scripture pins it down exactly.
Umm, but the last verse of the next chapter, chapter 33 and verse 20. And he erected there an altar and called it LA Israel. God, the God of Israel, uses that name that been given to him.
00:35:16
Between the Brooke Jabek, when he crawled, when he wrestles.
And he learns that God blesses him from that moment to the moment he sends out Umm Joseph to go seek his brethren in chapter 37. There's eleven years in there that we can get to get from Scripture. Exactly how the period in between is divided, I'm not sure, but I believe that we're fairly close to the end of that period.
I can't give it to you on the third authority of Scripture, that's what counts, but you want to look it up? Umm, Mr.
Mr. Kelly believes he's very close to the end of that period, and he gives several reasons from Scripture. My memory is not not good enough to give them to you, so you'll have to look them up. But I do believe he's toward the end of that period. And you know where he spent that time before this altar. The majority of that time is spent on the wrong side of the Jordan in the chapter. And what we skipped over, he splits and he deceives his brother Esau. I'll come down where you are. And as soon as Esau leaves, he goes the opposite way.
And he heads up almost to Shechem, but he parks where Reuben Gavin half drive of Manasseh Park on the, uh, eastern side of the Jordan. It doesn't crossover into the land that was given to his fathers until this moment. And you know, the moment he enters, he gets an altar.
When the land is important in his life and the minute he gets back where he belongs. God met him where he was. But the moment he gets back where he belongs.
Gets an altar and he says God, the God of Israel, he recognizes God in relationship with himself. He's carrying something with him that doesn't belong in the chapters we skipped over, you know what it was? There were those family idols that Rachel had under hid under her saddle. And they're still with him and he's parked and he's built a house and he built booths, booths for his cattle. And he made a nice spot in the beautiful land for cattle, just exactly where Ruben Gavin half drive in Manasseh would do it many years.
But now he enters into the land that was promised to him, into his seat, and immediately there's an altar. And when we take those steps of faith as God instructs us and directs us, there's more of himself that we come to know. It's not that he's he's doling it out because he's trying to hold it back from us until we perform. It's because he's drawing us to himself so that he can show more of himself to us.
That's what he's at work in each of our lives with. And so he comes and he crosses that Jordan, he enters the land and he builds an altar and it's wonderful. And so the next chapter is going to be filled with vineyards and, and flocks and all kinds of blessing, right?
There's Simeon and Levi and the whole message. Check them and it's just a it's a disaster.
But but the Jacob performed. He built the altar, and what does he get for it? He gets a mess and he's terrified and he's afraid the people are going to kill him and kill his family, getting all kinds of promises.
Couldn't have happened. That's not our point at the moment the Lord uses this period of his life a very quiet period of his life, a period of his life were not a whole lot is happening and it's passed over those almost 11 years between here and and what we're about to look at. He uses that period of his life to work in him What we're about to see. I believe that that was one of the things at least that God was working during this period and perhaps you've had a quiet period of your life.
You're still in that quiet period of your life. Maybe others are going through the, the horror of Shechem and all that happened there and seeing the fruit and the children and so on. Well, that was an important part of what he was learning. But maybe you're in a quiet period of your life. The Lord's at work and I believe this following thing. Let's turn to, uh, chapter 33, the beginning of the chapter.
Just read the first few verses.
And God said unto Jacob chapter 33 I'm sorry, I said 33 didn't I?
Umm, I should have said Chapter 35. Give me a moment to get there. Chapter 35.
Chapter 35 And we'll read the first few verses. And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee, when thou fledest from the face of Esau thy brother.
00:40:10
Jacob sent him to his household, and to all that were with him. Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments. And let us arise and go to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto God. We'll pause there.
The only part the Lord has put on my heart that really is for the conscience.
It's strange. Gods.
They didn't have bail, they didn't have Asherah, they didn't have the great Canaanite gods. The word here I believe relates to the little household gods, the little tariffs, him, those things that Rachel brought from her parents home.
I'd like to apply it in this way.
They're things we brought from our parents home.
That have the effective idols in our life.
And.
There are things I'd like to apply it in this way. I'm sure that the the type here is much broader. I'd like to apply it in this way. These little household gods had a purpose, and they were for divining, for figuring out the way of God, for the operation of the household, for the little things of life. And this word comes up multiple times in the Old Testament. You can trace it out for yourself, these little gods.
Weren't the big ones that show and this isn't the one the statue of the Nebuchadnezzar set up?
This isn't a Grove the Gideon tore down. These are those things, the little things, the things you can hide under a saddle, that are there in the life, that remove the need for God in the life.
That's what an idol is, isn't it? Those little things that remove the need for God in the life going to give you only two. Just to give illustrations, the principle, you have to apply them for yourselves.
I'm going to give you 2. One of them might be food now. I hope you enjoy good food yesterday and hope you enjoyed snacks during the break. The point of this is not to place guilt in any way.
On enjoying food, it was given to us by God, and God himself said of the meal that Abraham served him, that the food was tender and good, if God himself could say that of a meal. I hope you enjoyed the snack you had in your break. What I'm referring to is not.
Might might apply just as much to a person who is 20 lbs below the height and weight chart. What I'm referring to is this turning to food as a way of.
Patching over loneliness, turning to food as a way of a pick me up. Now there's a need for food for a pick me up. Jonathan did it, remember? He dipped the end of his staff and honey and he brought a little of that honey to his mouth and his eyes were enlightened. So there's a place for that. But what I'm referring to is taking those things and substituting them for that fellowship that God wants with our hearts.
And if you turn.
And nobody sees it. They're hidden in Rachel's life. They were hidden, right? Nobody saw it. I'm not talking about anything that anybody can walk out of this room and say, oh, and look at you. I'm talking about those things that the Lord sees, and they're hidden.
I believe that those eleven years were to bring those to the surface. Those eleven years were to bring them up so that they could be buried, so they could be gotten out of the way. So they give you 2. I wanna give you one more just to illustrate how far reaching this principle is. I believe it's important. When the hour was come, they sat down. I believe that timeliness and orderliness are very important.
And yet I'm going to suggest because it's been true in my own life. Now, this was very personal.
That taking time and using it as a way to control your environment.
Can be an idol.
I can't tell you.
Much damage done in my life by insisting on a false. I'm gonna call it a false because there's a real timeliness, right?
On insisting on a false timeliness, you said a certain time to get out the door to get to meeting. What a nice thing. You know you wanna arrive in time to hang up your coat and go to the restroom and sit down and have a moment of quiet before the meeting starts.
00:45:03
I still do.
So you're ready to get out the door and you prepared everything. Maybe you don't. OK, I'll put it. Change the pronouns here.
I want to get out the door.
And so we've established the time and we planned ahead and we've got everything lined up.
And somebody has a legitimate need and you're going to get out the door. I'll give you the old time of getting out the door at 9:00 on Lord's Day morning. And it's one minute to 9. And somebody has a need and what comes out.
I'm in control of that clock.
I'm in control of that clock. You're not in control of the clock. And I'm going to use that hidden thing and I'm going to make another suggestion here, and you'll trace it out for yourself. If you have anger in your life, I don't mean the explosive kind that everybody else sees. There's cold anger too, right? There's ways of expressing anger that have nothing to do with shouting and yelling and using inappropriate words. There's all kinds of brands and flavors of anger.
And it smolders. Maybe you don't say it. Your attitude toward the person making you late changes.
You can bring a lot of damage into your family.
Or you can vary that idle as an idle as a control thing, as a way of replacing dependence on God. That's what I really mean to say and move on. That's what Jacob does here. He buries the idols. He goes down to Bethel and in verse 9.
God appeared unto Jacob again when it came out of Peyton Arum, and blessed him.
What?
Came out of pain there I'm eleven years ago.
No, it says here.
God appeared unto Jacob again, and he came out of Python arrow.
Jacob's gotten down to where the next he clung. He clung. When he came out, he said bless me.
What happened in the last 11 years? What was that blessing?
The shepherd was walking with him and the shepherd was bringing to the surface this idol that needs to go and that idol that needs to go, and those things that other people don't see. Maybe they wouldn't even condemn if they did. They need to go because I want you in fellowship with me. And now he arrives from Payton there and he's blessed. God appears to him this time, and God says.
God bless you. That's beautiful. She gave us so much more to learn in his life, but God is meeting him now and he wants to bless him and he says he's going to bless him.
And then notice this in uh, verse 10.
God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob, That's the planter. Thy name shall not be called anymore, Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. He called his name Israel. He did that eleven years ago.
When He called out for the blessing, the cycle is complete and it's being refreshed in His soul. Your name is Israel. Perhaps there's more to it than that. It's just what I've enjoyed. And God said unto him. Here's the first time he hears in his life I've got Almighty.
He does Father say it. He talked about his father's God. Now he knows him. Now that very one is revealing himself to him in that character. Have you enjoyed God? Is your Father the characteristic name of the dispensation we're in? Do you enjoy them in those councils?
And not just heard your father enjoy it, not just heard your mother enjoy it, but in a personal way, God Himself.
Has revealed himself to you as Father. That's where he wants to bring us. That's where he wants to bring each and everyone of us in our lives, not stop short.
But get to this point where we know him and his character just as he wants to reveal himself to us in our day. And that's the journey we're on. Had a lot of stops, didn't it? Our, our lives have a lot of stops. I've got a lot of steps with every single one. Let me emphasize it again. Every single one was necessary.
Every single one. He needed them all.
Well, God that shepherded me all my life long unto this day.
00:50:04
It's nothing wasted. You had a lot to learn. Yes, I know there's reaping and there's lots of other lessons and they're important, but in the perspective when the Lord's laid on my heart is this everything that He's doing in my life and everything that He's doing in your life is absolutely necessary for His purpose, a blessing not just for you.
But for many, many others.
As well, Let's move on and I'll touch on them lightly. Chapter 46.
An awful lot happens in here.
Quite a bit more of Jacob really in these chapters.
22 years rolled by.
You flipped your page. You did it in about 3 seconds. You just flip past 22 years.
Jacob's life.
And you know, there's an awful lot going on in our lives, and sometimes you just miss. It goes right on by. There's something that God was working out in those years, and we get some of it here. Chapter 46, Jacob's ready to go down into Egypt.
Umm.
Maybe I should read the last verse of the prior chapter, chapter 45 verse 28 and Israel said it is enough.
Joseph, my son, is yet alive. I will go and see him before I die.
And Israel took his journey with all that he had, came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices under the God of the his father Isaac. God noticed this God spake unto Israel, Prince of God, and the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob.
It's a tough moment.
And Jacob's liar. I'm going to suggest at least I have enjoyed the following.
Jacob's come to appreciate the land. He's been promised that land.
It's important to them.
Now he's got to leave.
It's kinda late, the body will end up there.
The descendants will end up there, but he has to leave and God's purpose is for him. He's gotta go down into Egypt. And so when the Lord calls out to him, he calls out and he repeats his name. He says Jacob, Jacob. You can trace those out. You can't look them up in a concordance very easily, but you trace out the repeated name, Samuel, Samuel, Saul, Saul, Jacob, Jacob, and so on. Umm and, and other expressions, Earth, earth, earth. How Jerusalem, Oh, Jerusalem when it's repeated.
There's a a a need to hear because it's hard to hear.
Just take it that way. There's a need to hear because this is hard to hear. Isn't it beautiful? The Lord has brought Jacob to the point where he doesn't want to leave the land that God put him in. I think that's beautiful, and I think that's why the verse starts with at least to my own soul, I enjoy it. Israel's journeying. It's Israel.
And yet the Lord has to get his attention because this one's hard, Jacob. Jacob. So he speaks to him and he says and gives him the promise in verse four. I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again. Joseph. She'll put his hand upon thine eyes. Let's move on to.
Let's skip over I think what I believe to be the highlight of of Jacob's life. I want to finish there in a minute or two. Skip quickly to chapter 48.
Best blesses Manasseh Nephriam side of the chapter and umm come down to verse UMM 15 again where we have already read or read it again. And he blessed Joseph and said God before whom my father's Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long.
OK, that's a lot more now, doesn't he?
Looking back, I believe here he's about to die. The next chapter is an explosion of prophetic beauty. There's so much in it. And he gathers his feet into the bed and he dies. I believe he's almost at the end here, 147 years old, seventeen years in Egypt. He's looking back over the whole thing. Maybe the Lord's brought you and you're close to the end of your natural pilgrimage and you look back over the whole thing. Jacob could have looked back. And this is what I want to emphasize. Jacob could have looked back and said, oh, how much I wasted.
00:55:05
Oh, look at what I lost.
Once they look back to see.
It looks back and says God was with me.
God was with me and he had a purpose of blessing. Not only that, we didn't touch on it. It's a beautiful theme. You can trace it out for yourself. There's fear. There's fear all through Jacob's life.
He's worried the nations are gonna kill us because of Simon and Levi. Esau is gonna. Esau is going to kill me. And he runs, he comes back, Esau is going to kill me. You can look at all the presents and all the things that he does to try to work his way around being control of the situation so that he doesn't die.
Now he's ready to go. He's 147. This is the end for Jacob. Listen to these next words.
The Angel which redeemed me from all evil. Bless the lads. I believe in this context often in the Old Testament. That's how I take it here and correct me later if it's wrong. I believe that really what he's talking about is all those bad things that happen and they they happen to teach lessons and they happen for.
Whatever purpose God has, and it says the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, just looking back and he's saying, look at this situation here. I lost my wife by the roadside in her childbirth. Is he grieving over it now? No, the Lord kept me out of trouble because I had something to learn there and on and on and on.
You know, one of the things that may brought tears in my eyes yesterday as I saw it for the first time.
Two days ago. You know that gap.
For like 16 years between Joseph and Benjamin, all the other kids packed together in six years, and then there's this big gap and then Benjamin.
Joseph's the suffering Messiah, right?
Benjamin looked at the prophecy in the next chapter. Benjamin's the reigning Messiah.
Say, hug and leap earlier than this moment here. And it's a beautiful thing in itself. You and I live in that gap.
There was a purpose in it. There was a purpose in it. In between the one and the other, there's a big gap. And you and I live there. It doesn't all about Jacob. It's about you. It's about me. It's about God's purposes and blessing. Let's finish with this.
Turn over.
And I'll suggest in a moment while I say this, I believe is the high point of his life, Chapter 47, verse 31.
The end of the verse.
And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head. Isn't that exciting? Let's read it Mr. Darby's translation.
And Israel worshipped.
On the bed, Ted.
You don't have time. Turn over to Hebrews 11. You've got time and look at it and trace the footnotes. Hebrews 11 when it says he worship leaning on his staff, talking about this verse, it's trans. It's given to us in Hebrews 11 from the Greek translation of this verse.
In Genesis.
He worships and then blesses. But when God summarizes that part that He wants to give to us in Hebrews 11, what does he do? He says he blesses and then he worships. The order is reversed. And Hebrews 11. What was the crowning moment of Jacob's life? He worshipped, He knows God, He delights in him.
Time's gone, we'll finish with this thought. It's been precious to me in the last month or so. Maybe you've enjoyed it your whole life long.
Came to Mayo, I'm meditating on where my dad's at at the moment in his life and others like him.
Lord Jesus, I'm on that cross and there are nails in his hands and in John 19.
He didn't have hands to take the vinegar in his mouth.
So if they put it to his mouth, he didn't have hands to take it. Divine Son of God, during the become man on the cross, during the greatest work that will ever be done, did it without him. He did it without feet.
01:00:00
Yes, he wants us his servants.
My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. He wants us his worshippers. He wants us knowing Him personally, and that's why He's our God every single step of our lives.