We do not find in the New Testament, promises to be fulfilled such as were made to Abraham and Israel in connection with earthly blessing, because there is a fullness of blessing in connection with a heavenly people that there could not be in regard to an earthly people. True, God deals with me down here, but I cannot compare God's dealings with me in the wilderness, with the love that chose me before the foundation of the world, and accepted me in virtue of the work of Christ on the cross. That whole work of Christ is before God in connection with me, and that gives me what there is in Christ—sufficient for saints in all generations.
I should like to look a little at the character and history of Jacob. When we come to the dealings of God with a people down here, it is exceedingly interesting to trace those dealings. Esau was a finer character than Jacob. There was not the craft and selfishness about Esau that there was about Jacob, and there was about him a natural nobility of character that Jacob had not Jacob was taken up as a person to show God forming a character for Himself. It was the choice of God. He had said, " the elder shall serve the younger." God has said that, and in dealing with me as a saint, He will do it, till everything of the old nature is put down. If you have any one thing of which you can say, " that is of God,'' and you wish to connect self with it, you will find weakness. If you can not say of everything " is not that Thy choice," and if in everything you have not got a connection with the God in heaven, you will find weakness. Why did God choose that there should be twins? Why was he always choosing the younger instead of the elder? The world says " why?" and is angry; the believer says it and is pleased. The children are born: the first one born is called Esau; and the other, coming holding his brother's heel, is called Jacob or supplanter. God lets his character appear at the very beginning—there was no mental process, but there was character in it. Even in new-born babes we can observe certain things that are traits of the future character. One thing is remarkable, that is, the want of the showing out of the natural character of youth in Jacob: he turns to his mother—a home-boy. He was not at that time the deep, crafty one, whom God would take to form to Himself a character out of. Esau goes out hunting and returns faint and weary, "and Jacob sod potage." We see here how nature can play with the things of God: unrenewed Esau asks for the pottage, and it occurred to Jacob to get something out of his brother. Did Jacob see anything of God in the birthright? No! It could not have been so with such a plan; the character of the flesh came out: he had ends of his own—he got the one thing he cared about. The flesh could understand getting the place, the rights of the son and heir. God meant him to have it, but He did not call him to bring in his own crafty ways to get it. Next we find natural conscience at work. His mother proposes a. plan for him to deceive Isaac and get the blessing, but Jacob fears he shall get 'a curse instead. Then his mother with cunning devices makes her plot to deceive the old man and it succeeds, but you will find Isaac does not give the great blessing then, but that it was given when Jacob was leaving his father's house. Esau vows vengeance, but waits his time when the old man should be dead. Jacob has to escape and he meets with God, which shows entirely that he had not done so before: terror seizes hold of him. Then, as a man in the flesh, he drives a bargain with God; and, as his history goes on, we see him with all sorts of resources to help out God. He departs from Laban, but he does not go as a man of God, called by the Lord to go: if he had, he would have sent to Laban and have said, God would have him depart. Would not God have taken care of him? He flies as if for his very life, and then finds that God had spoken to Laban, whilst he taxes all nature's resources to make a good escape. God goes to Laban by night saying, " Take heed" what you do Laban " that you speak not to Jacob either good or bad." Laban is more simple and open than Jacob, he lets it all out. Jacob then goes farther on, and God is before him. Can he now walk in the strength of the Lord, or is flesh still a thing cherished and counted on by him? Yes, almost as much? He is still the supplanter, he has still a plan of his own. He would not sit down quietly and say " God has got a plan for me, and that will stand." No, he has got his own plan. What was Jacob doing? Just what all try to do—trying to satisfy the yearnings of inward feelings that are not satisfied by God. He takes of the portion God has given, weighs it all up in the scale of his own conscience and makes his plan: all is beautifully arranged to meet " my lord Esau "—to meet him as a prince. The present and the servants are to go first, then the wives and the sons—the beloved one and her son behind; and they are to bow down and propitiate Esau. He sends them over the brook and they go, but he stays and is left to his own troubled mind. He had got a plan of his own, and God and his plan cannot go together, like so many who make a plan for God, and He wont recognize their way. Well, Jacob is left alone, and One wrestled with him till the morning: he was going to get his own soul settled before God. Just as when the sister of Moses sat by the bulrushes, as it were saying, "let God do what He pleases." Jacob till then had had a plan of his own. Ah! you will never have a plan of your own if trusting to God. Suppose you have come to your last bit of bread; if you know that God has His plan for you, you will never be ransacking your own resources to know where to get a supply. I know enough to know, that a plan cannot live when God comes in. If you had one, you would put it behind your back saying, " get thee behind me," because you had brought in yourself, not God's plan. Well Jacob is all alone with this One, who wrestled with him till break of day. And what did he get? Not a promise in regard to Esau; but, when brought to know what it is to wrestle with God, he got God's blessing to himself. and got it when he found that everything in nature, all spread out, couldn't give him rest. Read vs. 24-28. "As a prince hast thou power with God and with men ": that is the blessing Jacob got. He could say, " I have learned that I have power with God, though I go as a lame one the rest of my days."
Esau didn't want any of his stuff at all: he says, " Keep that thou hast unto thyself." He acted uprightly, acted on by God; and, according to the promise given by their father, he "breaks the yoke off his neck." Jacob had learned a lesson which every saint of God ought to learn at the beginning of his course, that, " Not by might nor by power." In their whole course, God does not call them to plan for self, but to take the plan He puts before them.
Remark the difference in Jacob's name—no longer being called a supplanter, but a prince having power with God. And what price did he lay at God's feet for that name? Nothing: he only said " I must be blessed." How different if we look at his worth or right before God as a poor thing whose plans cannot keep his own mind quiet, and his saying, " I will not let thee go, except thou bless me "— I want for my own sake a blessing, and I won't let thee go—and the blessing is given like God gives. " What is thy name? Is it Tripper, Shuffler, Supplanter? Ah, no! Not thine own plans, but a " Prince to have power with God." It was getting himself connected with God, being powerful with God. On what ground? What could he say from first to last?—all Thy goodness, Thy thought choosing the younger and most contemptible of two children. God passes him through all manner of experiences. He stops to prepare a new plan, and God conies and gives him a new name. Esau takes very little notice of his magnificent plan, he could keep his goods for himself: God had touched Esau's heart.
It is important to see how the flesh has acted in one's own experiences. We have only to look up and see it now; but it ought not to be allowed to act in us. We are not in the same place, all the old thing has been judged, and God says, I call upon you to reckon yourselves dead, buried and risen with Christ. If saints don't begin there they will have all sorts of plans and will find they cannot get on, but are in a place of terrors. If God had poured out all your sin deserves on your head to-day, it wouldn't show out a judgment compared to that on the cross when His Son died. Do any of you know what it is to be in the place Jacob was brought to there? Paul knew what it was to be left in prison alone with God. Do you know what it is to be in such a place, alone with God, as Jacob? Let my plan answer or not I am alone with God, wrestling, saying "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." You will never know what the joy of a Christian's life is, till you get there; till you have got to the place where God puts the name of son on you, connecting you with His plans, so that you can say, " I certainly form part of His plan, my flesh cannot shine in connection with that plan, the flesh can only be crippled thing in connection with God." I don't think we know what that place of solitude with God is. Oh! what an unruffled calm there—able to say—" God and I were alone and He spoke to me of great things. I cannot be disappointed. Why? He spoke to me of the glory of being His son, why should I, such a poor thing, be spoken to of being a son of the Lord God Almighty, and of having a place in the Father's house, and I know my springs are in Him; I cannot be disappointed, for He is a God that cannot lie." Let me put to your spirits, in the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, are you there? Do you understand the place of the sister of Moses committing the babe to the waters, and then sitting down to see what God would do? Are you able to sit alone, saying, " There Lord is the object of my affection, let me see what are Thy thoughts about it." It ought not to be a strange thing to be alone with God. When Jacob got to Jabbok, he was cut off from all circumstances.
I would 'ask you, whether your souls individually know what it is to have to do with God alone? Have you known what it is to sit down with all the plans of the flesh judged, saying, " What will God do for His own name's sake "?