Jacob — An Object of Grace

    "And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”

    Here are four passages of Scripture, each revealing a specific aspect of the grace of God in the life of Jacob. However, if all we see in these texts is the history of God’s dealings with Jacob, we miss the purpose of God the Holy Spirit in giving us the inspired volume of Holy Scripture. These things were written for our spiritual learning, for our comfort, and to encourage our hope in Christ (Rom. 15:4). Believers should always appropriate the Word of God to themselves. We should never look upon the Book of God as a mere record of either historical, or doctrinal, or prophetic facts. Therefore, as we look at these four passages of Holy Scripture and see the grace of God in the life of Jacob, the sons of Jacob ought to appropriate each text to themselves and see the hand of God’s grace in their own lives.

    In Genesis 28:15, God’s grace is set before us as grace for the present. The Lord God says to his servant Jacob, “Behold, I am with thee,” right now, presently. Grace is the present heritage of every believer. We rejoice to know that grace is eternal (Eph. 1:3-6; 2 Tim. 1:9). Our hearts delight in the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has by his blood purchased for his people all the inheritance of grace and glory. In Christ, grace is our purchased possession (Eph. 1:11). And we thank God for past experiences of grace. Grace experienced in the past fills our hearts with sweet memories of God’s goodness to us. Grace sought us out of a fallen race. Grace called us from death to live. Grace revealed Christ in us and gave us faith in him. Grace caused us to come to Christ in the beginning; and grace has kept us coming to him. But living bodies cannot live on yesterday’s bread. We must have some bread today. Neither can we feed our souls on yesterday’s grace. We must have grace today. Child of God, I want you to see that grace is yours this very hour. God says to Jacob, “Behold, I am with thee!”

    Jacob was the son of a long line of men chosen by God; and he too was chosen as the object of God’s grace (v. 13). Grace does not run in blood lines; but sometimes God does call many from the same family. That was the case with Jacob. His father Isaac and his mother Rebecca were believers. His grandfather Abraham and his grandmother Sarah were believers. What a blessing! To have for your father and mother, for your grandfather and grandmother, men and women who walked with God is the most distinguished hereditary honor in the world. Well might Jacob rejoice to hear the God of his fathers say to him, as he had said to them, “Behold, I am with thee.” The believing sons and daughters of believing parents are possessors of an indescribably rich heritage. Yet, none should foolishly imagine that grace is a matter of heredity, passed on from father to son (John 1:11-13). Grace comes to chosen sinners according to the sovereign will and pleasure of God alone (Rom. 9:16).

    This word of grace, “Behold, I am with thee,” came to Jacob at a time when he greatly needed it. He had just left his father’s house. He was about to be faced with a very great trial. Nothing could have so effectually prepared him for twenty years in Laban’s house as this promise from God.

    This word of grace came to Jacob when he needed it most. It was at the moment when Jacob was totally alone, a family outcast, friendless, and a pilgrim in a strange land, that God almighty spoke to him and said, “Behold, I am with thee!” I defy anyone to measure the height or depth, length or breadth of that infinite blessing. What more could God say than this - “I am with thee”?

    When God is with you that guarantees infinite love, mercy, and grace. God will not dwell with those he hates. He is not with those to whom he is not merciful. He does not abide where he does not dispense grace. But to each of his people, he says, “Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine…I have loved thee…Fear not: for I am with thee” (Isa. 43:1-5). As a man delights to be with his friends, so our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, delights to be with those whom he has chosen, redeemed, and called.

    “I am with thee” means I will help you (Isa. 41:10). C. H. Spurgeon said, “Whatever we undertake, God is with us in the undertaking; whatever we endure, God is with us in the enduring; whithersoever we wander, God is with us in our wandering.” “If God be for us, who can be against us?” If God is with us, what can we not do, or endure, or overcome? This is what Paul meant when he wrote, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Let every son of Jacob, every believer, hear the promise as a promise coming directly from God himself to you. God is with you, my brother, my sister, so completely with you that he is in you. The whole Godhead is with you, in the entirety of his Being!

    When God says, “I am with thee,” he promises, with his presence, his sympathy. Our Savior is so touched with the feeling of our infirmities he feels what we feel, suffers what we suffer, and endures what we endure. If we have a load to bear, he is with us. If we have a work to do, he is with us.

    How precious, rich, and full this word of grace must have seemed to Jacob as he lay under the stars in the wilderness. His bed was the cold earth. His curtains were the bushes around him. The heavens were his canopy. His pillow was a rock. He was alone, afraid, and helpless until the Lord God appeared to him and said, “Behold, I am with thee!” If you are a believer, if you are washed in the blood of Christ and born again by the Spirit of God, you are one of Jacob’s sons; and God says, “Behold, I am with thee.” That is God’s present assurance of grace.

    In Genesis 31:3, we read God’s promise of future grace. He says, “I will be with thee.” Whatever else the future may hold for us, let every believer be assured of this, it holds grace, rich, free, abundant grace in Christ.

    Were it not for the weakness of our flesh this promise would be unnecessary. When God says, “I am with thee,” you can count on it, he will be with you. God does not change. He will never forsake his people (Heb. 13:5). Some people believe in a god who loves today and hates tomorrow, who pardons one day and condemns the next. Such a god is no God at all. Our God is the God of Jacob, who changes not (Mal. 3:6).

    Jacob had lived with Laban for twenty years. In those years he endured many troubles. It was now time for him to leave Laban and return to his home in Canaan. He needed the word of grace renewed to his heart, so the Lord God said to him, “I will be with thee.”

    Jacob began to take root among the worldlings. So God called him away. Then he forced him to obey. Laban had begun to despise Jacob (v. 2). Laban’s sons were envious of him (v. 1). Those upon whom he had relied turned against him. Those whose good he had served opposed him. Those who were most indebted to him were envious of him. So it is with God’s elect in every age. Therefore, the Lord God said, “I will be with thee!”

    The journey Jacob was about to take was a dangerous one, and he knew it. Laban would not willingly let him go. Esau was sworn to kill him. Such a journey with such a large family would be very difficult. But God called; and Jacob must obey. Therefore, the Lord God said to him, no matter what you have to face, “I will be with thee” Your future is full of grace!

    In Genesis 31:5, we see the grace of God experienced and acknowledged by Jacob. “The God of my father hath been with me.” Every believer’s life is, from beginning to end, an unceasing experience of God’s grace. Right up to the time that he left Laban’s house, Jacob said, “The God of my father hath been with me.”

    He had not been a very gracious man; but God was with him nonetheless (Psa. 89:30-33). The Lord chastened and corrected him; and the Lord protected and blessed him. Though Laban cheated him out of his wages ten times, God blessed Jacob! Everything done against him worked good for him. Our great God is a God who ought to be trusted with implicit confidence. He is faithful. His grace and his faithfulness are unconditional.

    Poor Jacob, though he was a believer, though he had experienced so much grace, when he was fleeing from Laban and heard that Esau was coming after him, he was distressed and full of fear, yet the Lord was with him (Gen. 35:3). Thank God, he does not leave his people because of their fears. If he did, we would have all been castaways long ago.

    On the night of his wrestling with the Lord, when he was humbled, broken, and made to confess his name, the Lord God was with him. He says, “God was with me in the way which I went!” Jacob was the object of God’s everlasting love, the eternally chosen object of his grace (Rom. 9:11-13). God was with him in his mother’s womb. God was with him in his youth. God was with him when he fled from his father’s house. God was with him when he broke his thigh and broke his spirit. God was with him in Laban’s house. God was with him when he returned home again. And on his death bed, old Jacob confessed more fully than ever that the Lord God had been with him all his days (Gen. 48:15-16). He had lost Rachel; but God was with him. He had endured famine; but God fed him. He had lost Joseph; but the Lord God was with him. At the time he said, “All things are against me;” but now he eats his words. He now realized that God had never been more fully for him! Now he says, “The Lord God redeemed me from all evil.” If you are a believer, this will be your verdict upon your life at the end of your days - “God was with me!” He hath “redeemed me from all evil”. Every believer’s life is from beginning to end, an unceasing experience of God’s grace!

    In Genesis 48:21, we see the grace of God transmitted from one generation to another. “Behold, I die: but God shall be with you.” Those were Jacob’s dying words to Joseph. He was saying, God will yet be gracious. So it shall be, from generation to generation, so long as the world stands. The grace we have received and experienced at the hand of our God shall be transmitted to the generation that succeeds us.

    We all tend to fret and worry needlessly about the future. We fret about our children. We worry about the future of God’s church. We concern ourselves too much about what will become of those who depend upon us. God will not cease to be gracious when we die. He still has an elect remnant. He will be gracious to them. He will be with them as he has been with us.

    This has special application to every believer’s family. We can and must trust our sons and daughters to the sovereign goodness of our God. God’s grace does not run in bloodlines. We cannot save our children, or oblige God to save them. But we can believe God. Long before my only child was born, I gave her to my God. On the night she was born, as I gave thanks to God for her, I gave her back to him. On the day my wife and I brought her home from the hospital, together we dedicated that child to our God and committed her to his hands. We trained her in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What is the significance of that? Just this -- God never has yet rejected a child given to him in faith. Samuel, Samson, Solomon, and John the Baptist all verify God’s faithfulness in this regard. I do not suggest that God has not cast away the children of believing parents. Eli’s sons and David’s children tell us otherwise. But I do say, God has never cast away any child given to him in faith.

    This is what I am saying - I believe God. Anything we refuse to give to him he will take from us. Anything we give him for the honor of his name he will receive. Does the Word of God confirm this or does it deny it? Let no one misunderstand. The Book of God does not teach proxy faith. We cannot believe God for someone else, not even for our children. Each one must personally trust the Son of God for himself. Yet, God honors and uses the faith of others in bringing chosen sinners to himself. The Canaanite woman’s faith had something to do with her daughter’s healing (Matt. 15:22-28). Jarius’ faith had something to do with his daughter’s resurrection from the dead (Lk. 8:41-42, 49-56). When the Lord Jesus saw the faith of four men who carried a desperately needy soul to him, he said to the palsied man, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee” (Lk. 4:20).

    This also has special application to every gospel church. The time will come when the pastor will be taken away from his flock; but God will be with his church. The church of God does not depend upon the preacher. The cause of God, the truth of God, the kingdom of God does not depend upon any preacher, or any man, no matter how great, how gifted, or how useful he is in his day.

    Someone once asked Mr. Spurgeon, “What will become of the Tabernacle when you are gone?” He replied, “It will probably be the greatest of blessings when it happens. Many good men have clung to their places longer than they should have done, and have pulled down much that they had built up. It is well when the Lord says to such, ‘Friend, come up higher’.” George Muller was once asked what would become of the great orphanage he had built for homeless children when he was gone. Muller replied - “God will use George Muller as long as he likes, and when he chooses to put him aside, he will use somebody else.” When Abraham dies, God will be with Isaac. When Isaac dies, God will be with Jacob. When Jacob dies, God will be with Joseph. When Joseph dies, God will be with Ephraim and Manasseh. And when we die, God will have a people to bear his name; and he will never lack a champion to bear his banner among them. And the Lord will be with them. When Elijah was taken up, Elisha picked up his mantle and cried, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” And God was with him.

    1.Grace is ours now - God says, “I am with you!”

    2.Grace shall be ours in the future. The Lord’s promise is, “I will be with you!”

    3.Grace has been ours all the days of our lives. With Jacob we look over the days of our lives and say, “The God of our fathers hath been with us.”

    4.And the grace of God shall be with those who follow us in faith - “God shall be with you.”