Let's be turning to Genesis 35. Genesis 35. I wanted to come
back here before we go on to the closing stages of Jacob's
life. And I thought it would be good
to review the things that the Spirit of God shows us of how
he wrought life and salvation and ministered life to Jacob. Because Jacob, I think the believer
can find a great deal of comfort in looking at Jacob, who Jacob
was, the kind of man Jacob was, Because there's a lot of faults
in Jacob. We see them in all the patriarchs.
We see the sin of Abraham. We see the sin of Isaac. And
we see the sin of Jacob. And yet God loved Jacob. God was very gracious to Jacob. And what really stood out as
I was looking at this is how the Lord used the suffering of
Jacob, to minister much to Jacob, to minister the truth and to
reveal the grace of God to his people and how he dealt with
Jacob in his life. And we'll see this even when
we go on further looking at the close of Jacob's life, but I
just wanted to reflect on this and touch on a few small things
before we exit this chapter. Let me first say this, because
there's two things here. There's one, as believers, we
have a perfect standing in Christ. And then the other thing that
the Lord shows us, so he teaches us our perfect standing in Christ,
and then the Lord teaches us his wondrous grace, the wonders
of his grace. And we're gonna know that. As
I was touching on this morning in the last message, we're going
to know the wonders of God's grace toward us undeserving sinners. So first, let me just say a few
points on our perfect standing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our
Lord was chosen of the Father, appointed by the Father to be
the Savior of his people to gain us standing, to reconcile us
to God. Because in Adam, if that was
it, if all God made provision for was in Adam, it's over for
us already before we even begin, when Adam fell. And we fell in
Adam, but in the Lord Jesus Christ who was sent and reconciled us
we have a perfect standing with God. We know that Christ was
crucified as the Lamb of God on a tree for the sins of his
people. We know that God raised him from
the dead. justifying the Lord Jesus Christ
and justifying all you whose hope is fixed in Christ, who
trust his righteousness for your righteousness, you're justified. That's what the resurrection
of Christ declares. And the apostles said this, him
hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior
for to give repentance to Israel. to turn us from trusting dead
things that cannot save, to give us repentance, to give us life
where there was no life, to turn us from death to the true and
living God, and to give us forgiveness of sins. And therefore now we
come declaring this word that through this man, the chosen
one of God the Father, through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins and to declare to you that by him all
that believe are justified from all things from which he could
not be justified by the law of Moses or by man's religion by
our works we cannot be justified but Christ accomplished everything
And so this is a glorious work of redemption. And God performs
this miracle of his grace in all his people. And he calls
us to himself through the preaching of the gospel. And so we learn
one of the things that our God teaches us is the free, full,
sovereign salvation in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. His sovereign
grace. Now, because of this glorious
salvation which is wrought for us by Christ, who willingly came
and laid down His life for us, we find Him, we're made to know
that He is our crown and glory. He's our crown and our glory. He's our all. We read in Hebrews
2, why don't you turn there to Hebrews 2 and read this with
me. And picking up in verse seven, it says of Christ, thou madest
him a little lower than the angels. Thou crowned him with glory and
honor and did set him over the works of thy hands. Jesus is both Lord and Christ. Thou has put all things in subjection
under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection
under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now
we see not yet all things put under him." Right? We know our
enemies are defeated, but not everything is put under him.
Men and women are still dying and going in the grave, but we
know he's defeated that enemy, and it's coming when that's put
under him. But we see Jesus, who was made
a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste
death for every man. For it became him for whom are
all things, and by whom are all things in bringing many sons
unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation, Perfect through
sufferings. Perfect through sufferings. Our
Lord's sufferings inform the experience of the child of God. It's no wonder that you and I
suffer. There's a reason for that. There's
a purpose in the things which we suffer. And we're made partakers
of the grace of God in Christ who suffered for us. He suffered
for us. Now, do we see these sufferings
traced out for us in our brethren, in those that are spoken of here
in these scriptures? We do, we do. And that's why
we're gonna look, we'll see that in Jacob. But before I go there,
Paul spoke of this. He said in 2 Corinthians 1, verse
five, that as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our
consolation also aboundeth by Christ. He then said in verse
7 of that same chapter, And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing
that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also
of the consolation. And so we're made partakers of
sufferings. We do suffer. As believers, we
do suffer. And Paul rejoiced that he was
made a partaker and had fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. He rejoiced in that. Peter tells
us, saying, Rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's
sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be
glad also with exceeding joy. And so we're made to suffer,
right? And we know all men and women,
we know all people suffer from various things, but you that
believe Christ, when you suffer, you suffer as believers, mindful
of the true and living God, mindful of him who is sovereign. able
to do all things, that's on your heart and mind. When you suffer,
you're thinking of the words of your Lord and what He said,
so that you come to Him with those cares and with those burdens,
and you seek Him for His grace. You seek Him for His mercy through
that suffering and that trial, and that's what makes it different
for you as opposed to those who have no relation, no understanding
of God, who have no faith or comfort from the Lord. Consider
that in light of this. Turn to Luke 9. In Luke 9, and
we're gonna go to verse 22. Luke 9, 22. Our Lord speaking there said,
the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the
elders and chief priests and scribes and be slain and be raised
the third day. He suffered this because he is
the Christ, the Savior of his people, the Savior of the body.
And he said to them all, if any man will come after me, Let him
deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake,
the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged
if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away?"
And so, think of that in terms of your suffering as a believer. We're not only persecuted when
we speak of Christ to others and they hate us. That's not
the only way that we suffer. We suffer the things that we
suffer like others, but we suffer as believers who trust the word
of our God, who promises life to us. That is a very different
suffering than those who might have the same losses as you have. and endure them, because the
Lord is sanctifying those sufferings to you, as believers, who pour
out your heart to him. There was many nations that were
conquered by another nation, and yet Hezekiah took those words
of that one who defied the God of Israel, and he laid that before
the Lord, saying, this is what that man said, Rabshakeh, this
is what he said, Lord, but you promised to save your people.
And so yeah, many people were conquered by other foes, but
Hezekiah and the kingdom of Israel was coming under that suffering
as believers. See the difference there? It
changes the whole perspective that you have because you know
the Lord. And so you're carrying that suffering,
that sorrow to him as a believer, trusting his promises, saying,
you said this, Lord, save me, save me, I need you, Lord, save
me. And so that's how it's very different. And so when we come to Jacob
here, Jacob had sufferings. I'm sure other fathers and other
families had sufferings, but these sufferings were sanctified
to Jacob. And so it is, brethren, when
you suffer, they're given to you by the hand of your God,
sanctified to you for your learning and instruction and benefit according
to the purpose of God for you as His child. to teach you, to
show you the truth of these words, to draw you near to Him as His
child. That's how it's different. That's
why it's different. That's why it's a suffering with
Christ in these things. You're a partaker and mindful
of God, just as Christ the Son trusted God the Father, in his
suffering so you learn to trust Christ your Savior, your head,
through your suffering. And it's sanctified in that way,
brethren. And that's why I believe the
Lord said, and blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended
in me. Not lash out at God and get angry
with him. But trust Him in it, that He
has a purpose. And He's God, and He can do as
it pleases Him. But He has a purpose that's good
for us. And so with these divine blessings in our view, First of all, of what Christ
accomplished for us by his propitiatory death, and second, of the sufferings
that he calls us to in himself, to be partakers of. I wanna see,
I wanna look at Jacob before we go further in his life, to
the end of his life there, because it traces out my experience,
that I'm called to of God, and that I'm called to walk by faith
in him. And the same with you. who profess
Christ and believe him. So oftentimes, we see that Jacob's
trials, you know, when we look at them, we say, yeah, but Jacob
brought so much of this on himself. He did, like he just, he did
things that caused himself trouble. How is that blessed of God? Well,
it is, it is, and I can identify with that. I can identify that
a lot of my troubles seem to be because of my own folly, my
own weakness, my own foolishness. So I'm thankful for Jacob because
I see that God loved Jacob. Lord, do you love me? I believe, yeah, like you've
called me. Just because I see sin and I
see weakness in me doesn't mean that I'm a castaway. because
God is very gracious to those that are weak, base, foolish
sinners. right, to those who need him.
He reveals himself to them. And I say that not that sin should
be our aim. I'm not saying that we want to
aim for sin so that grace may abound, right? As Paul said,
what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? So I'm not saying this
to make sin our aim and to justify our folly, not at all. But we
see it in this flesh. We're made to know our weakness.
And that's why we sing of God's gracious redemption because we
see how weak we are, how undeserving we are. And yet God is so merciful
to reveal his son to us, to feed us with the bread of heaven.
That's That's why we sing of his redemption. As the psalmist
said in Psalm 103 10, he hath not dealt with us after our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. And God, things
could be a whole lot worse and they're not by his grace and
mercy. And we witnessed that. And so
when we look at Jacob, I broke it down in three ways here that
we'll look at these examples. One is divine influences, the
other is divine revelation, and the third is divine power or
protection or provisions that God gave to Jacob. And I say
these things so that you're not distraught when you suffer trials,
because you're going to suffer. various trials, you have, and
just because you're suffering them, the world, especially the
religious world, tells you, you got it, you deserved it, you're
getting what you deserve, right, you're being punished now, and
it weighs on you. And it's hurtful, and it's not
helpful. But we see here that God sanctifies
these trials not to punish you, not to get you, but because you
are his child. And he uses those things in such
a way so as to reveal himself to you and to draw you nearer
to himself. It's for your good, not for your
punishment and to push you away like the world makes it seem
is happening. Our sufferings strip us of vain
fleshly confidences that puff us up and lift us up in our thoughts,
whereby then we're not loving others. When we think we've arrived,
hey, how come you can't figure it out? I did, right? The Lord
doesn't allow that in his people. He keeps us humble and ever looking
to him And out of that understanding, that's where we're gracious and
kind and gentle to others, to our brethren, when they need
that mercy from their brethren. So to begin, these scriptures,
well, to begin, we begin with first, let me just say, how did
all this start? It was when Jacob deceived his
father, Isaac. to receive the blessing that
Isaac was intended to give to Esau, right? Because he preferred
Esau. Esau was the oldest. He loved
Esau. He loved the meat that Esau brought
him. He was going to bless Esau. And Jacob came in there in a
very fleshly way and intercepted that blessing for himself. And
that was of the flesh that he did that, but we see in that
God's divine influence. Because Jacob have I loved, Esau
have I hated. God purposed for that blessing
of Abraham and Isaac to go to Jacob, not to Esau. And so we
see that divine influence. And even though we look at Jacob
and say, and can pick that apart and say, that was very fleshly
what you did there in deceiving your dad, in the way, the manner
that you went about doing that. But what do we learn from that? Well, we see the same thing,
that God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. And so he makes us to know it's
not because of anything good in me. There's nothing good in
Jacob. Nothing good in Jacob. that we see there, and yet God
loved Jacob, and that's true of us. It's not because of anything
good in us, it's because he chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world, because he would be gracious. He would do that.
And then, but that all, the divine influences that, what happened?
That led to Jacob being moved out of Canaan, going to Paddan
Aram to seek a bride, all according to the will of God. God brought
that to pass because he would do that in that way. So there
was a purpose in it, a purpose in it. And then as he's leaving
Canaan, going out of Canaan into Paddan Aram, he goes and lays
his head down to sleep in Luz, which would eventually be called
Bethel, and there God revealed himself to him. Divine revelation. In chapter 28, Genesis 28, verse
15, It says, 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. And so God
revealed himself to Jacob. He began to show him that he
is the true and living God. And he put that seed there and
then he watered that seed. He tended to that seed throughout
Jacob's life so that in Paddan Aram, Jacob begins to serve for
his bride. For Rachel, but he got Leah and
then he got Rachel a week later and had to serve another seven
years. So seven and seven years, 14 years. And then, I'm sorry,
yeah, 14 years. And then he had to serve another
six years for an inheritance, so that he would leave Patana
Ram with something. to his name for his family. But
all that time, he was suffering under the cruel hand of Laban,
probably learning a lot about himself because Laban was pretty
tricky and changed his wages 10 times and gave him a taste
of his own medicine and how he was toward his brother. So he
probably learned a lot about himself there. But through that
suffering, we find God's divine influence for Jacob again. He used that because eventually
when he saw the animosity rising up in Laban and his sons and
the way that they were looking at him and the things that they
were saying when Laban went by, he understood what the Lord was
saying. It's time to go, Jacob. Go back to Canaan. Go back to
Canaan. So we see through that suffering
divine influence. And then we see an example of
divine revelation. So that when God revealed to
Jacob what he would have him to do, Jacob, with that word,
went and preached that word that God spoke to him to his wives. And his wives heard it. There
was divine revelation. There was power poured out upon
them who heard the word and what they say. In Genesis 31, 16,
whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do it. You do it. And that was encouraging to Jacob
then. And so it was time to go. And
so he packed up his things. He got everything together, his
wives, children, and all that he had gathered there in Paddan
Aram, and he starts heading back home. But then he's troubled
again by Laban, who comes after him, and whatever Laban, was
had in his heart to do to Jacob, and I'm sure it was not good.
He probably was going to strip him of everything he took out
of Paddan Aram and bring it back to him and send Jacob on his
way alone with nothing. He probably was gonna take it
all, but God turned his heart, and so God provided for him. He defended him. He protected
Jacob, and Jacob saw God has done this. That man would have
taken from me everything, but God provided for me. You see,
others don't have that viewpoint, but he did because God revealed
him and God was showing him how that he was providing for him. Then we see divine influence
again, leading to Jacob suffering at the thought that he was soon
going to see Esau, his brother, for the first time in 20 years
after his brother, he knew his brother was gonna kill him. And
he didn't know what to expect from Esau. He thought, this might
be it. I'm going to be destroyed by
my brother. But as he's fearful of that,
as he's suffering and worrying about that, God gave him divine
revelation again. The angel of the Lord coming
and wrestling with him that night. He wrestled, and it says in Genesis
32, Genesis 32 verse 26, and the angel said, let me go, for
the day breaketh. And Jacob said, I will not let
thee go except thou bless me. And that day breaking, brethren,
is a picture of what the Lord does when the light of Christ,
the day star, rises in your hearts. where you hear and you see Christ
rising in your hearts and the Lord breaks through the darkness
of our hearts and minds and whatever it is that we're suffering. And
we see Christ and we're made to know, I will not let thee
go except thou bless me. Right, because we're brought
to see, Lord, I need you, Lord, save me, Lord, I'm going to be
destroyed here. Save me. And the Lord does that
for his people. He broke through. with divine
revelation. And the Lord, the blessing was
he gave him a new name, Israel. And that picture is what the
Lord does for all of us. In Revelation, it talks about
to the church, I'll give you a rock with a new name written
on it. And what is our new name? This is the name wherewith she
shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. Previously, our
righteousness was in our own works, what we wrought for ourselves. But in grace, our righteousness
is Christ. He's all our righteousness. And
so that's our new name, the Lord, our righteousness. And then,
divine protection. Jacob and Esau meet, and everything
was fine. The Lord gave Esau a kind heart
toward Jacob. He had no desire to harm Jacob
at all. And so the Lord provided for
him. And then Jacob, becoming complacent,
outside of Shechem, he's setting up booths, and he's just happy
with what he's doing. And then trouble gets stirred
up. Divine influence comes in there so that now Dinah came
into trouble, right? She was defiled by Shechem. She was basically, she was raped
by Shechem and that troubled all of Israel. And while Jacob
suffered, and then his sons, what did they do? They took religion
and they used it deceitfully to bring death to Shechem and
all that city, right? They misused religion in a way
that brought death to all of them there. And while Jacob suffered
in fear that his enemies were gonna come and take him, we see
God's divine revelation in speaking to Jacob, saying, arise, go to
Bethel. Go to Bethel, make there an altar
unto God. Go worship God that appeared
unto thee when you first fled from Esau. I provided for you
then, you go back there, I'll provide for you once more. I'll provide for you. And that
led to a beautiful display of God's divine revelation and power
again, right? So that Jacob stood up and said
to his whole household in Genesis 35, verse two and three, and
to all that were with him, he said, put away the strange gods
that are among you and be clean and change your garments and
let us arise and go up to Bethel and I will make there an altar
unto God who answered me in the day of my distress and was with
me in the way which I went. And God gave a mighty demonstration
of his power because that whole family heard the word and rose
up and they all went with Jacob to Bethel. All that they had,
they all went as one family up to Bethel and there worshiped
the Lord. And that's a powerful display
of God's mercy, his power, his glory there for them, for Israel
there. And then God gave divine protection. None of the enemies that Jacob
was stressing about and worried about harmed him. No one came
out after him or touched him. And then he goes to Bethel and
he's given divine revelation once more where the Lord repeats
all the promises to him. declaring himself to be I am
God Almighty. That was in verse 11. I am God
Almighty. I am El Shaddai, upon whom all
these promises that I've given to you rest. Not upon you, Jacob,
but upon me. And we're taught that. We learn
by the grace of God that all our hope, all our salvation,
everything we need that God has spoken and promised to us rests
not on my doing or my not doing, but on Jesus Christ. And so he
does, he takes us through all these sufferings so that we're
exasperated and we're emptied and we're stripped of vain confidences
and find that he does everything for us. And if he didn't do it
for us, we wouldn't be saved. And we're made to know that by
his revelation, through his power, through these sorrows and sufferings. Without these sufferings, we
wouldn't know these things. It would only be textbook. It
would just be an academic learning. But this is learned through real
world experience, through the application of it being taught
to us in a real and blessed way. And then he continues to suffer.
Well, when he heard those promises, what did he do? He set up a pillar.
A picture of our faith resting on the word of God, the promises
of God. It goes on then, like this whole
chapter 35 here is a closing out. It's an ending of all that
old garment, if you will, of Jacob. At the beginning, it starts
off with put away the idols. So under an oak, they hid the
idols that they were trusting in and carrying around with them.
It speaks of Deborah, his mother Rebecca's maid, her dying and
being buried under an oak. And then it speaks of Rachel
dying and her being buried and Jacob setting up a pillar upon
her grave, trusting the Lord, believing that God will raise
her from the dead, that when we die, even these bodies which
return to dust shall be raised again anew in him. And then we read this in verse
22, and it came to pass when Israel dwelt in that land that
Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel
heard it. Now Reuben committed incest with
his father's wife, his father's concubine. He had no business
touching her. I don't know if if Jacob had
relations with Bilhah anymore, but what does that matter? That
wasn't Reuben's woman to lay with. He had no business touching
her at all. And so it was an offense against
Jacob, and it was an offense against his brothers. And it
was an offense against his brothers for touching her in that way.
It says in Israel, heard it, Israel, heard it and that's the
name of Jacob but I noticed as I'm reading this when Jacob's
still alive when it uses that name Israel a lot of times it's
including the whole body the head and the body it's of Jacob
and his whole family heard it, and his whole family was affected
by that. His whole family was grieved
by what he had done. And you think about it back in
Genesis 34, verse 7, when it's speaking of the defiling of Dinah,
it says, and the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they
heard what Shechem had done to their sister Dinah. And the men
were grieved. And they were very wroth because
he had wrought folly in Israel. And the whole body was affected
with what Shechem had done in lying with Jacob's daughter,
which thing ought not to be done. It ought not to be done. And
so here with Reuben's wicked deed, the whole family heard
what Reuben had done. The whole family was grieved
and sorrowed by what Reuben had done. Right? I mean, he had two brothers who
he laid with their mother. That was just wrong with what
he did. And so they all suffered, and
yet they all bore it. They all bore it. They all continued
with Reuben. They all suffered Reuben. They
forbear with Reuben, perhaps endeavoring to keep the unity
of the spirit and the bond of peace. Because they didn't put
Reuben out. They didn't destroy Reuben like
they had destroyed Shechem. When he did that, they forbear
Reuben. And so we see there that Jacob
continues to suffer. And now he's learning how to
bear with the sins of the body there. Bearing with his brethren,
bearing with the people, suffering even as the Lord suffers us in
our weaknesses and in our folly. It's a picture of that. And then
finally, his father Isaac dies at the end of the chapter, and
he and his brother Esau bury him. And so Jacob now is the
patriarch. He's the one with the blessing.
And so in the next chapter, 36, we read, and Esau left the land
because it couldn't sustain them both, because the land was given
to Jacob. It was Jacob's land, and so Esau
went to Edom, and there set up his camp. And so we see this
pattern over and over and over again, where the Lord divinely
influences his children. And he moves them, even using
suffering in such a way, sanctifying our sufferings, whereby we then
receive the revelation of God, because we hear it. When you're going through something,
and we come to a place in the scriptures that speaks to what
you know in our suffering, your ear is open to it, you hear it. in a very peculiar, powerful
way because it's very pertinent, it's very relevant to you and
what you're going through. And you hear it anew, you hear
it fresh, you hear it in a way that really speaks and ministers
to you because the Lord has given it. And then you go and you see
the application of it, the provision of it, the power of it, the protection
that the Lord gives you with that word being proved to you,
which you've heard, with that faith set up and established
upon him. And so the Lord keeps bringing
these sufferings, but he uses it in a blessed way. And you
think about it, even, we're not gonna, I don't foresee us having
a message from chapter 36, because all it does is talk about Esau,
and you think about Jacob's children, and the things we've seen with
them, with what Reuben did, and previously what Levi and Simeon
did, and whatnot, and we'll see more things after that. with
the children, what they do to Joseph, and things that Judah
does, but we see that, but then you come to chapter 36, and every
one of Esau's kids are great. They're all dukes, meaning they're
all chiefs of their families and tribes. We don't read of
any trouble that they have. We don't read of them having
any troubles being mentioned whatsoever, like Jacob's kids
and their problems. But at the same time, we don't
read of any divine influences for Esau and his family. We don't
read of any divine revelation for Esau and his family. We don't
read of any divine provision or protection or power given
to Esau and his family. All that they have is of the
earth. It's carnal and it dies with
them. It perishes with them. And that's
because they have no part in God's inheritance. But you do. You do. And therefore, your sufferings
are given to you with purpose for your good and for your blessing,
for your eternal good. I was reminded as I was looking
at this of Psalm 73, and you can turn there, Psalm 73. And we'll pick up in verse four. Speaking of the wicked, the psalmist
says, I was almost overtaken by all this, what I was looking
at. And he says, for there are no
bands in their death, in the wicked, but their strength is
firm. They have an abundance. They
don't seem to have the troubles I have. Why do these things happen
to me? And they don't happen to them.
And they don't even love the Lord. They have no care or thought
for the Lord. They are not in trouble as other
men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore, pride
compasseth them about as a chain. Violence covereth them as a garment. And so there's many people on
a day that are not touched with the afflictions of the saints,
And they're certainly not sanctified to them in the way that they're
sanctified to you that believe. Because again, when you suffer,
you're suffering as a believer. You're suffering as one who confesses
the true and living God, whose hope is in him. You're trusting
his word, and now there's something that's come to try. that trust,
that faith, that proves that faith in God, that endures that
trial, that endures that suffering, and is refined and made beautiful
because it's of the Lord's hand for your good, for your strengthening,
for your learning of Him that provides for you. And it can
be a trouble. I say this because it can be
a trouble to young believers. When they first begin, what's
going on here? I thought everything was going
to be fine. Well, no, it doesn't say that in the Word, that everything's
gonna be fine. It says you're gonna be tried
and afflicted, and you're gonna suffer these things. And it troubled
the psalmist, but look down in verse 17 of Psalm 73, 17. He
says, I was troubled until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then
understood I their end. And that's something that's,
necessary for us to see, that when our hearts are put back
on the Lord, once our eyes are fixed on Him, because I get it,
when you're out there in the world and you're just doing the
things that you do, it's so easy. to just be overcome with this
world and your eyes just get focused on dark things and worthless
things and things that add nothing, have no value or profit to you.
And all you're doing is just the things you have to do in
life. You're just working and you're just taking care of the
things you have to take care of and you're just doing what
you're supposed to do and your eyes get taken off. But when
we come and hear the Lord, then our eyes are fixed on Him, and
we see Him who's precious. And then all this outside stuff
goes into perspective. Surely, verse 18, thou did set
them in slippery places, thou castest them down into destruction. How were they brought into desolation? As in a moment, they are utterly
consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh,
so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. And so these things are shown
to you, brethren, because you profess and hope in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You, you're called to pick up
your cross and to bear these sorrows, these sufferings, with
the cross, dying to self daily and looking to the Lord and trusting
his word and not turning to your own devices, but laying it before
him. Remember these words from the
apostle Peter. Let's just turn there and closing
in first Peter chapter three. In 1 Peter 3, in verse 14, Peter
says, but if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye, and be not
afraid of their terror, neither be trouble. When you look at
Jacob, do you see him suffering for righteousness' sake? By our carnal eye, we would say,
no, he did this, he brought this on himself. But with the eye
of faith, we see he was suffering for righteousness sake. The Lord
gave him these sufferings and sanctified them to him for his
good. Because, like Jacob, these things
strip us of vain, carnal things that cannot save. But sanctify
the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an
answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that
is in you with meekness and fear." Right? Why are you trusting in
God? You brought this upon yourself. Because he's the savior of sinners. He's merciful to all who call
upon him and cry out to him for grace and mercy and help in time
of need. Having a good conscience that
whereas they speak evil of you as evildoers, they may be ashamed
that falsely accused your good conversation in Christ. The wicked will never understand
the grace of God. or why you continue to believe
Him and set up that pillar of faith on His Word and trust Him. And all they can do is add to
your sufferings. Now that's happening to you because
you broke that commandment. That's happening to you because
you didn't do what you were supposed to do. Well, maybe that's true,
but I hope in him who is gracious and merciful and sent his darling
son to save me." And he says, if I confess my sin, he is faithful
and just to forgive me my sin. For it's better if the will of
God be so that you suffer for well-doing than for evil doing. And so bear that suffering in
the Lord. Even if you think that there's
something tied to it that you shouldn't have done, bear it
before the Lord, confess it to him, lay it before him. For Christ
also hath once suffered four sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit." And so I pray that seeing Jacob
stripped so often, and brought into dire straits so often, and
yet provided for so often by the Lord, and kept by the Lord,
and the Lord kept revealing himself to Jacob. Let that be a comfort. and a strengthening to you to
trust him, to believe his word, because he's demonstrated it
to you in Christ over and over and over again, just like he
did it for Jacob here. I pray the Lord bless that word
to your heart's content. Amen.