1 Chronicles chapter 4. Let's begin
reading in verse 9. Just two verses. Sometimes I need something myself. And
I was thinking about this and went back in Some of my old outlines,
and I thought nobody else may need this, but I need this for
myself. So this is for me. And Jabez
was more honorable than his brother. And his mother called his name
Jabez. The word means, you may have
it there in your center reference, he will cause pain. Because I bear him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of
Israel, saying, O that you would bless me indeed, and that you
would enlarge my coast, and that your hand might be with me, and
that you would keep me from evil. that it may not grieve me, cause
me pain. And God granted him that which
he requested. I want to just leave you and
hopefully just still this one thought in our minds this evening. God is able to bless a man. That's an amazing thought. You
and I, sometimes we think, what does God even care? We learned
a word a couple of weeks ago, impassable. God's outside of
us. God is so high above us. What
can we do to affect Him in any way? We can't add anything to
Him. We can't take anything away from
Him. Why even be concerned? Why even look upon us? And it's
a wonderful thing when we think of this passage. Jabez prayed
and said, O God of Israel, would you bless me? And God granted
him his request. What a wonderful thing. God who
needs nothing. God who is sovereign. He's independent. He's free. And yet he's able
and willing to bless a man. What a wonderful thought. God
is able to bless a man. It's interesting here, and you
often see God addressed this way, countless numbers of times,
as the God of Israel. This is who he prayed to. He
called on the God of Israel And when you see the God of Israel,
that means that he's a covenant God. He's a covenant God. He made a covenant with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. He's the God of Jacob. And that
covenant contained all kinds of promises. Promises of blessings. He appeared to Abraham, and he
said, Abraham, in you, in your seed, shall all the nations of
the earth be blessed. And he made that covenant with
Isaac, and he made that covenant with Jacob. So sometimes when
they address God, they call Him the God of Jacob, the covenant
God. Listen to some of these passages.
Thou Israel art my servant. I have chosen thee, and I will
not cast thee away. O Israel, you are mine, my covenant. Thus saith the Lord God that
created thee, O Jacob, and formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for
I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, and you are
mine." So when they called on him, they said, this covenant
God. Surely shall one say, in the
Lord have I righteousness and strength, in the Lord shall all
the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory. That's a promise,
isn't it? That's a covenant that was made
to Jacob, the God of Jacob. Listen to this one. Remember
these, O Jacob and Israel, For you are my servant, I have formed
thee for myself. Thou shalt not be forgotten of
me. I have blotted out as a thick
cloud thy transgression, and as a cloud thy sin. Return unto
me, for I have redeemed thee." All of these promises to Jacob
and to Jacob's seed. I will place salvation in Zion
For Israel, my servant's sake. Israel shall be saved in the
Lord with an everlasting salvation, and shall not be ashamed. A world
without end. The covenant of God. O God of
Israel, bless me indeed. I said this morning, if you and
I couldn't find a word God promised to bless, then no sense in asking. But boy, if you find where he
made covenant and made promises to bless, I mean take that promise
and go right directly to him and say, Oh God of Jacob, Oh
covenant of God, covenant God, you're able to bless me. So this is who he went to. This
is who he went to. Jabez knew that God was able
to bless him because he said, you're the creator. You hung
the star. You created the earth and man
upon it. He knew that the God of Israel
was able to bless him and he knew that he was willing to bless
him because he was a covenant promising God. The God of Israel. Who was this man that called
on the God of Israel to bless him? Now this is very interesting.
because we have no idea who he was. Nobody knows who this man
was. You can go back and read the
Jewish historians, but you put about as much stock in a Jewish
historian as you do a post, because they were as superstitious as
Catholics themselves sometimes. But from a scriptural standpoint,
we don't know who this man was. If you want to study something
that's very boring, and difficult, you want to read it, read these
first three chapters, four chapters of the book of 1 Corinthians.
And then begin in verse 11 and take off and read some more boring
stuff. That's just being honest. You can't pronounce the name.
But right in the middle of this, we came and found this man Chabas. But we have no idea who he was. We've never heard from him before,
and we don't hear from him again. When did he live? Where did he
live? Who was his parents? What kind
of occupation did he have? Was he a rich man or a poor man?
Was he educated or illiterate? Was there peace in his time?
What was the condition of the church? We don't know. We don't
know. You know what I think the Holy
Spirit is telling us by then? It don't really matter. It just
doesn't work. Here was a man that came out
of nowhere. We don't know how old he was,
or who he was, or what he was, but he came to understand that
the God of Israel was able to bless the man. He believed that. So he went to him and said, Oh
God, bless me. Here's our problem sometimes,
and you see this ain't so. We want to put all these prerequisites
and conditions on everything. I believe God can bless me. But you know, we're living in
such a bad time. I believe God can bless me, but
boy, right now, there's just so many things in my life that
just ain't right, and I need to get straightened out. I believe
God's able to bless a man, but boy, I tell you what, I'm just
so unworthy and I'm so ignorant. I just need to know more. I believe
God's able to bless a man, but, but, ain't we that way? Do we believe that God's able
to bless us right where He finds us? That's our problem sometimes.
Isn't that our problem? We've got to make some improvements. We've got to get some things
straightened out. We don't know what was going
on in this dear man's life. We don't know what kind of condition
he was in. We don't know what kind of condition
the church was in, or the nation was in. There may have been war
in his day. It may have been a time of the
great fall in the way of the church. But the Holy Spirit seems
to be teaching us none of those things matter. Do you believe
the Lord is able to save you right where He finds you? Your
life, up to now, has been like a bunch of genealogies. It's
been hard to read, ain't it? And everything from here on out
may be the same way. But do you believe He's able
to bless you? Is God such a God that can bless
you right now, right before He finds you? That was one of my
greatest problems. That's one of the things that
kept me from coming to the Lord. I didn't see how the Lord could
save me where I was. I thought I had to do all kinds
of things to prepare myself for Him to save me. But everything
I did, I felt, well, you need to do something else. I do that. You've got to do something else.
I never could prepare myself. And one thing I found out, and
it was such a glorious blessing. Oh, it was like light flooded
into my soul. He can save you right where you're
at. Right where you're at. That's the wonderful thing about
God's blessing. He can bless you right where
you are. Oh, God of Jacob, bless me. And God granted him his request. Now, ain't that a wonderful thing?
I think it's very telling that we find these two verses right
in the midst of all these boring genealogies. Because that perfectly
describes my life. I've got such a mediocre life.
If you followed me around, you'd say, Bruce, I had no idea your
life was so boring. But you've got this routine that
you just get up and drag out to your office and drag home
for dinner and drag back home when your wife gets home and
nothing happens. You're a boring, mediocre life. Like a bunch of genealogists.
Could the Lord bless somebody like me? I believe He could. He could bless this man and I
believe He could bless me. Something else about this man
here that was said about him, here in verse 9, Jabez was more
honorable than his brethren. I was looking and trying to find
what the commentators said about him. They had all kinds of opinions,
but nobody knows what it meant for this man to be honorable.
What does it mean to be honorable? I found out what it means to
be honorable. The Bible tells us what it means
to be honorable. Listen to 1 Samuel 9 and verse
6. There is in this city a man of
God, and he is an honorable man. What's an honorable man? He's
a man of God. If you're born of God, you're
an honorable man. If you're born of the Spirit
of God, that makes you an honorable man. God cannot be in a man and
that man not be honorable. He's an honorable man. Listen to this. It was said of
Barnabas that he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost. What makes a man honorable? What
makes a man good? The Holy Ghost. That's what makes
a man honorable. If the Holy Ghost is in you,
and He's leading you, and He's guiding you, you're an honorable
man. This is what the Lord told Israel.
Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honorable,
and I have loved you. Now, what makes a man honorable?
Being loved of God. Because the love of God will
have the fruits of it in your heart. We love Him because He
first loved us. You're an honorable man. What
makes you honorable? I love you. I love you. You know what makes my wife who
she is? Because of me. She'd be nothing without me.
She'd be so mediocre. What makes her so great is me. I love her. I'm her husband. And boy, that makes a big difference
in her life. What makes you what you are, Glenn? God loves you. You find out God loves you, that'll
change your life eventually. And I'm telling you what's the
truth. Not only will you not want to offend Him, you won't
want to hurt anybody else. Love is the fulfilling of the
law. Because you love somebody, you
won't commit adultery, you won't steal, you won't kill, you won't
defraud. Why? Love. Love. Love is the fulfilling of the
commandment. The cause is precious in my sight, your honor, and
I have loved you." Here was a man that seemed to me that was simply
born of God. He had his conscience purged
with the blood of Christ, and now he did good works. He had
the Holy Spirit within him, and he was a good man. He was loved
of God, and that made a difference in his life. He was honored. Something else about this man,
not only was it said that he's an honorable man, but something very sorrowful,
very discouraging, even at his beginning. It says here in verse
9, the last portion. She had this son, and his mother
called his name Jabez, because I bore him with sorrow. Can you imagine having a name
like Jay Bass? Every time somebody said, how
you doing, Jay Bass? He shall cause pain. Every time
he thought of his name, he said, boy, that just suits me. That
just suits me. I've caused myself more trouble.
I've caused those who love me a lot of trouble. Jay Bass. That's a good name
for us, ain't it? people of sorrow, people that's
caused a lot of pain. And you know when it began? At
our birth. Man that's born to a woman is
full of trouble, full of sorrow. We came into this world speaking
lies, shaping an iniquity. Our sorrow began at our birth. All of us really are J-basses. Just J-basses. And yet here was a man, he's
born of God, knew something of God's love, had the Spirit of
God in him, but he was a man of sorrow from his birth. And yet he prayed, O God of Jacob,
can you bless somebody like me? Can you bless somebody like me?
And here it was said, God heard his request and granted it. And the last portion of verse
10, And God granted him that which he requested. I don't care
what kind of life you've had. I don't care how unimportant
you are, how boring, mediocre your life is. I don't care how
full of sorrow you've had, how much pain you have had, or how
much you're having now. I don't care what's going on
in your family or in your own heart. I tell you this, the God
of Israel can bless you. He can bless you. That's the
God we believe in. He can bless you right where
He finds you. And when God blesses a man, he's
blessed indeed. He's blessed indeed. Listen to
what Proverbs 10.22 says. the blessings of the Lord, it
maketh rich, and he adds no sorrow with it." That's the blessings
of the Lord. Oh, Lord, bless me. And when
He blesses you, He adds no sorrow with it. We may seek to get things
ourselves, and once we've got them, boy, they bring us a lot
of grief. Have you ever went after something in this world,
and when you got it, you wish you hadn't? There are three ways that we
can tell that God has blessed us with material blessings. You
know the Lord blesses us with material blessings. He does,
doesn't He? Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness, and these other things will be added
unto you. And how much God gives us. But
here's three ways that you know that the material things that
you have are true blessings from Him, that He's given to you.
They're not a grief. They're not a grief to you. They're
not a sorrow to you. The blessings of the Lord maketh
rich, and He adds no sorrow. Listen to this. It's not a grief
in giving them. If you have anything material
in this world, if the Lord gave them to you, you weren't grieved
in giving them. And number two, you weren't grieved
in sharing them with others. Don't grieve. You just have your
hand out. The Lord gave it to me. I don't
care to give it away. The blessings of the Lord maketh
rich. And thirdly, it won't be a grief. When you come to let
them all go, you can let them go. And the Lord has no sorrow
with that. Not in getting them, not in giving
them away, and not in letting them go. But there's not only carnal blessings
that the Lord blesses us with, that He adds no sorrow, but oh,
think of the spiritual blessings that He gives us. Has the Lord
ever blessed you with one spiritual blessing that it was a burden
to you, that it was a sorrow to you? He told Abraham, he said, I'm
going to justify the heathen. I'm going to bless the heathen.
In you shall all the heathen be blessed. How are you going
to bless them? I'm going to justify them. Has that ever been agreed to
you? For him to justify. Blessed is the man whose iniquities
are forgiven. Has that ever been assigned to
you? This is the promise that He has promised us, life eternal. He's blessed us with life. Has
that ever been a sorrow to you, to have life? Oh, when the Lord blesses us
with spiritual blessing, I'm telling you, He adds no sorrow
with it. Lord bless me. Here's the message that he asked
for. Notice this in verse 10. And Jabez told on the God of
Israel, saying, Lord, that you would bless me indeed. And the
first thing he asked is this, that you would enlarge my coast,
enlarge my borders. What's that all about? Was he
wanting more land? Probably. Probably. But I tell you why he wanted
more land. This was the promised land. This was the land that
God promised Jacob in that covenant. And he wanted more of it. Enlarge
my borders. The Lord had brought them in
there and given them the land of Canaan, but they still hadn't
possessed it all. The enemies possessed a lot of
it. And maybe Jabez' border extended
in beautiful plains. And boy, he looked at those plains
and he said, oh, that's the promised land. Oh, God, extend my borders
there. Let me drive out the enemy. Give
this to them. And he saw this mountain there
that he could walk up on. And boy, see all the way to Jerusalem? He see all the way up into Lebanon,
those mighty cedars? See over the Mediterranean Sea?
And he said, oh, would you enlarge my borders? Would you give me
more land? How could we spiritualize this?
Is there anything that you want enlarged about yourself? What about your heart? David
said, Lord, enlarge my heart. Enlarge the borders of my heart.
What would happen if you had a larger heart? You could contain
more of a great Savior, couldn't you? We have a Savior that's
incomprehensible. His love passes knowledge. His mercy is higher than the
heavens. His faithfulness reaches unto
the clouds. You know what our problem is?
We've got such a little heart. We can't retain much of it. You
know what we need to pray for? Lord, enlarge my borders. Enlarge my heart. And then fill
it with Yourself. Fill it with Your knowledge.
Fill it with Your kindness. Fill it with Your love. And the Lord granted him his
request. Notice what secondly he asks
for. That thy hand might be with me. That your hand might be with
me. Listen to some things concerning
the hand of the Lord, and I think it will be evident why he prayed
this prayer. We are told in Scriptures that
the Lord's hand is strong. Listen to Isaiah 40.10. Behold,
the Lord God will come with strong hands, and his arms shall rule
for him. My hand hath laid the foundations
of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned out the heavens. Isn't that wonderful? The Lord
will come with strong hand and His right hand shall rule for
Him. Lord, I want a hand like that. Rule in me. Rule everything around
me. And let me see it. Bless me,
Lord. Bless me. Let me see Your strong
hand on my behalf. We were talking just a minute
ago about what we fear that's going to be coming over in the
Middle East and the Arab countries. I want to see a strong hand leading,
don't you? I want to see a strong hand ruling.
In me and outside of me. Listen to this. The scripture
says that the Lord has a big hand. Listen to Isaiah 40 and
verse 10. Who hath measured The water in
the holla of his hand measured all the seas. And the holla of
his what? A big hand he had. I remember
somebody asking Brother Mahan one time, he was preaching on
election, and some fella come up to him and said, you act like
just a handful of people is going to be saved. Brother Henry said,
depends on whose hand you're talking about. God's got a big
hand. A big hand. And listen to this,
his hand is a securing hand. I give unto them eternal life,
and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and nobody is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. That's a securing hand ain't
it? It's an upholding hand. Listen to Isaiah 41 and 10. Fear
not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, I am your God,
I will strengthen thee. Yea, I will uphold you by the
right hand of my strength. That's an upholding hand. The
steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and though he fall,
he won't be utterly cast down. Why? The Lord upholds him. How? With His hand. Oh, Lord, bless
me. Let Your hand be with me. I don't
want a hand like that with me to bless me. I guess J. Barry was a preacher,
wasn't he? That's my prayer as a preacher. That's my prayer
as a preacher. Lord, uphold me. Uphold me. I already made mention back in
the kitchen about those men who were scattered at the persecution
of Stephen in the early church. And the scripture says they went
everywhere preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord
was with them. And great numbers believed. Isn't that what we need with
our preacher? We need an invisible hand working in him and in the
hearts of those he preaches to. The hand of the Lord working
with him. Arm of flesh. I don't need it
and you don't either. But boy, we need the hand of
the Lord. Lord bless us. And notice what else he says
lastly. This is a request he has. That you would keep me from
evil that it grieve me not. Boy, here's a man that didn't
trust himself. Did you notice that? Keep me. Keep me. I tell you, if you don't
trust yourself, that's your prayer. If you're scared to death of
yourself, And you keep yourself out of the situation that you
know you could fall. You're scared to death of yourself.
I'm scared to death of myself. You are too. How many times will
your brother Glenn pray, Lord, don't leave us to ourselves.
Keep us, keep us, keep us. Why? We'll fall if you don't.
We'll fall into sin, we'll fall into evil, and we'll grieve ourselves
to death. There's been men that I know
that are good men, good men. But they got careless and not
watchful, and evil overtook them, and I tell you, they spent the
rest of their life grieving over it. And this was a man who knew
that. So what did he pray? Oh Lord,
keep me from evil. I don't want to spend my life
grieving over it. I don't want to spend my life
seeing others grieved over the evil that's overcome me. There's
some of you here in this congregation. So often when I talk to other
people, often in other states, they'll say, how's old Clarence
Ford doing? How's old Clarence Goodgill doing? How's Bob doing?
How's Barb Wilson doing? People ask me that. Because people
know you folks and they love you folks. Can you imagine how
you would grieve those people and grieve yourself if you fell
into evil? Can you imagine the next time
somebody called me and said, how's old Crunch Porter doing?
Ah, right now he's not doing much good. He knew he left guilt,
didn't he? No, no, don't tell me that. Don't tell me that.
Yeah, he's fallen. Oh, he's awful fallen. What happened
to him? Evil. You want that to happen? I don't
want that to happen. So we go to the Lord and we pray,
Oh Lord, keep me from evil, that it not grieve me. John Bunyan spent a lot of his
life, and this was the prayer that he had. Lord, prepare me
now for death when it comes. Prepare me now for death when
it comes. I don't want to go through this
life careless and unkempt and come down to death and have to
look back on all this evil and have it to grieve me. Keep me. Father, deliver us from evil. deliver us from evil. And here's
the blessing. Here's the blessing. The Lord
granted him that which he requested. God is a God-answering prayer. He's a God-hearing and God-answering
God. May the Lord bless that to your
hearts. Let's pray.