“Jacob I Have Loved ...”

[00:00:00] You would like to turn with me to the little prophecy in Malachi? [00:00:08] Prophecy of Malachi. [00:00:12] I want to read from chapter three, one verse, verse six. [00:00:20] For I, the Lord, change not, therefore. Yeah, o sons of Jacob are not consumed. [00:00:33] And then in chapter one and verse two, I have loved you, saith the Lord. [00:00:45] Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? [00:00:49] Was not Esau Jacob's brother, saith the Lord. [00:00:55] Yet I loved Jacob. [00:01:01] Just a further word of prayer. [00:01:06] Beloved Lord, we want to thank you for this day, this day of fellowship, this day of ministry, this day of information for prayer, fuel for prayer. We praise you for every part of this day. And now, as we come to this last time, this evening, we are standing by faith into that anointing which you have provided for us, that both in the speaking of your word and in the hearing of your word, it may be divine ability to speak your word and to hear it. [00:01:43] Lord, we thank you for that anointing grace and power which our Lord Jesus has won for us. Let us know it in double portion this evening and quicken us. We pray, challenge us, and enable us to serve you in the years that you yet will give us. We ask it in the name of our messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen. [00:02:17] This little prophecy of Malachi is very small, but it is unbelievably significant. [00:02:30] It completes the Old Testament canon of scripture, although in the jewish arrangement, it is not the last book in the Septuagint, the old jewish greek translation of the Old Testament, which the early church used. [00:02:52] It was the last book in the greek translation, and when it came to the christian arrangement later with the New Testament, it was placed where it now stands at the end of the old covenant. [00:03:12] It concludes and completes all the revelation that God gave in the books, the 38 other books of the Old Testament. [00:03:29] It is God's final word at that point concerning his own, concerning his people, that people whom he chose from among all the peoples of the earth. [00:03:50] This is his final word. [00:03:56] It is not a word of judgment, although it speaks of judgment. [00:04:03] It is not a word about curse, although in the english translation, the very last word in the prophecy is curse. [00:04:22] It is interesting because sometimes you hear christian preachers tell us that the Old Testament ends with a curse and the New Testament ends with a blessing. [00:04:37] And as a result, many christian people have got an idea that God has cursed the jewish people, bought them under judgment, rejected them, and that this little prophecy was in fact a prophecy about their rejection, about their being, as it were, thrown out. [00:04:59] In fact, this little book is a declaration of the undying, persevering, untiring love of God. [00:05:20] It is quite extraordinary when you really look at it. [00:05:25] God's love for his own awesome, fearsome, unbelievable, unfathomable, eternal, tireless, persevering, fulfilling. [00:05:50] This little word is so extraordinary. [00:05:53] For I, the Lord, change not, therefore, ye, o sons of Jacob, are not consumed. [00:06:03] It's almost odd. [00:06:06] I would have thought it should have read, I, the Lord, change not, therefore, you miserable sons of Jacob. Murmuring rebellious all the time, biting the hand that feeds you. [00:06:26] I have no more time for you. [00:06:32] Instead, it is exactly the opposite. [00:06:37] I, the Lord, change not. [00:06:41] You, o sons of Jacob, are very changeable, up and down all over the place. [00:06:51] But because I am the lord says who I am, I will not come consume you. [00:07:02] You shall not perish, but at the end you shall stand in my salvation. Even more remarkable is the way that this little prophecy begins. Jacob I have loved. [00:07:20] Surely that is one of the most remarkable statements in the whole Bible. [00:07:29] If there was anybody who some people would call unlovable, I would have thought it was Jacob. [00:07:39] Jacob the impossible. [00:07:43] That's what I would call him. [00:07:46] And I'm not saying it in an anti semitic way. [00:07:52] I am speaking about relatives. [00:08:03] Jacob the impossible. [00:08:06] His very name means supplanter. [00:08:12] He was born the second of twin with his arm wrapped round his brother's leg. [00:08:20] Therefore he was called Yaakov because he was trying, it seemed, to supplant his brother. [00:08:30] There are many ways you could translate this. I have often used the word and some people get very upset with me over it. I have called him the twister. [00:08:43] That is exactly what it is. His arm was twisted round his brother's leg. [00:08:48] Others have called him, more respectably, the supplanter. Others in the living bible of the translation has called him Jacob. Call him Jacob because he is the cheater. [00:09:05] I think perhaps the most modern colloquial way you could possibly describe. [00:09:14] Explain. This name is Jacob the grabber, exactly what it means. He grabbed his brother's leg and he was to grab everything else. [00:09:34] He grabbed his brother's birthright. [00:09:39] He grabbed his brother's blessing, he grabbed his uncle's wealth. [00:09:50] Jacob the impossible. [00:09:56] Now, having said that, I want to correct the impression I have given. [00:10:05] Jacob was an incredibly fine young man. [00:10:13] Intelligent, gifted, unbelievably capable. [00:10:23] He is not, as some people depict him. His brother was a great, hairy, sports loving outsider. [00:10:36] Loved the air, open air was a hunter. Jacob was an anemic, spineless, a kind of interior decorator type. [00:10:52] This is the way so often Jacob is put over to people as if somehow he was an effeminate type of fellow that had really not much use in a man's world. [00:11:06] It is not the real picture of Jacob. [00:11:12] Jacob was, as I have said, an incredibly fine young man, sensitive, thoughtful, capable, gifted. [00:11:34] The fact is that God had chosen him above his brother Esau. [00:11:42] If you read in the record in Genesis 22, you will read how their word, a prophetic word, came to the parents about the twin. [00:11:55] The elder will serve the younger. [00:12:01] And there was the most incredible explanation of the calling and vocation of Jacob. [00:12:10] After all, we have to say this. [00:12:13] God chose Jacob. [00:12:20] There is no problem in that fact. [00:12:23] The problem was not gods election, nor gods purpose for Jacob, nor gods promise concerning him. [00:12:39] The problem was Jacobs flesh. [00:12:46] Untiring, ambitious, unbelievably capable, manipulative, gifted flesh. [00:13:04] All the way through history, God's people have not suffered from giftlessness. [00:13:12] They have suffered from gifted flesh. [00:13:18] Flesh that can organize the Holy spirit right out of any work of God, the kind of talent that can systematize and institutionalize any moving of the Holy Spirit until it has killed it. [00:13:37] The whole history of God's people is one long testimony, one long giving of evidence for the fact that the work of God and the people of God and the purpose of God from one point of view, has suffered not from the weaknesses of God's people, not from their failings, not even from their sins, but from, from their noble, talented, gifted, manipulative flesh. [00:14:14] Jacob is the most incredible illustration of this principle. [00:14:22] Self centred, self promoting, self fulfilling, self serving, self dependent. [00:14:34] Does it touch any chord in you? [00:14:48] It is not just a question of being a humble child of God. [00:14:53] It is a question of a servant of the Lord. [00:14:57] There are so many, Reverend Jacobs, im not getting at ministers as such. Im just saying, you see, we think that when the man has finally got trained, gone through college or Bible school, the Jacob is out of him. Not so, so very often in the college, in the seminary, we train and refine the flesh, thats all. And then we let them loose in the work of God. [00:15:30] And then we see the mess all over the world. [00:15:38] It is an enormous problem. [00:15:41] Thats why I have entitled this little bit of what I want to say. Jacob the impossible. [00:15:53] If it was not for God. [00:15:56] To change Jacob into Israel is an impossibility. [00:16:02] Who can change a Jacob into an Israel? The only thing we can do to put it in Christianity terms is to christianize Jacob. [00:16:15] We put good phraseology into his mouth, we train him, we theologize him, we somehow give him a whole christian, as it were, milieu in which to live and work. [00:16:33] But he is still Jacob. [00:16:37] Ambitious, manipulative. [00:16:39] He can't help it. It's not that he was an evil man. He just couldn't help it. After all, had not God said that the elder would serve the younger? Then how else is it going to happen? Unless at the first opportunity he steals the birthright. [00:16:59] What is it? A God given opportunity. [00:17:05] His brother was famished with hunger. [00:17:09] What an opportunity. Now the Lord will use me, Jacob, to fulfill that prophetic word given before I was born. [00:17:24] And what about the birthright? [00:17:29] There we have a little more problem. [00:17:33] There, dear Rebecca was involved. [00:17:38] Jacob said. Yes, Mother. Yes, Mother. [00:17:42] Yes, Mother. [00:17:45] Read the record. [00:17:49] Jacob would never have deceived his father unless he wanted to deceive his father. [00:17:55] But of course it was Mother's fault. [00:17:59] It has been said that the hand that rocks the cave cradle rules the world. [00:18:12] Dear Jacob. [00:18:16] It was Mother. [00:18:21] Mother did it. [00:18:24] I questioned her. [00:18:27] I said, but surely father will know. Don't argue. Do what I say. [00:18:37] Anyone who knows any anything about young men knows very well that they never do what their mothers say. Unless it falls in with exactly what they want. [00:18:49] Isn't it true? What kind of young man is it who does what mother wants simply because Mother wants it? [00:18:56] He's not worth the salt. [00:19:04] What an amazing picture we have here. [00:19:09] Jacob and the birthright. [00:19:12] Jacob and the blessing. His old half blind father. [00:19:21] Jacob the intelligent, Jacob the sensitive, Jacob the talented, Jacob the gifted. Putting on skin gloves made of kid's fur. [00:19:45] Putting on the strip around his neck. [00:19:49] Probably plastered to him by some mixture of flour and water. [00:19:56] Can you imagine such a thing? The young man was in his twenties. [00:20:02] He was not a fool. [00:20:06] He goes in to his old blind father. And even his father wasn't convinced. He says it is the voice of Jacob, but the smell of Esau. [00:20:22] He stole the blessing. He stole the birth of. [00:20:30] The problem with Jacob was not gods election, not gods purpose for him, nor gods promise concerning him. [00:20:45] The problem was his flesh. [00:20:55] I think of Jacob at Bethel. The picture is a little better. [00:21:00] At least there was no twin brother to deceive and no old aged father to deceive. This time it was Jacob and God. [00:21:13] You know the story of Bethel. He was tired. He fled from from Esau. In the night he came just north of Jerusalem to a place called Bethel. [00:21:28] Then it was called Luth. And there he found. He was so tired. He found a stone and he made it a pillow. [00:21:35] It's supposed to be that stone that is on the cottonation chair in Westminster Abbey, if you believe that kind of story. [00:21:48] The fact of the matter is he slept there with his head on that stone. And then he had a vision, an incredible vision of a great staircase going up to heaven and above it, on it, at the top stood God and angels coming down and going up. [00:22:04] And when he awoke, he was terrified. His flesh was terrified, for he had somehow met with God. God had met with him, and his flesh was terrorized by that meeting with God. [00:22:22] He said, this is a dreadful place. [00:22:26] This is none other than the house of God. And then we've got the old Jacob. [00:22:32] Within moments of being filled with dread, his old flesh came at the top. And he said, lord, if you will bring me safely back here, I will build you a house, and I will do this and I will do that, and I will give you 10% of everything I have. Now, you might think thats wonderful. This is like many christians. [00:23:09] They say, I give the Lord my tithe and the rest is mine. [00:23:13] That is not what I understand. Being a child of God is all about. [00:23:18] Being a child of God is that everything belongs to the law. You give at least the 10th, but everything you have is the Lord, not yours. You are steward. I am a steward. We are stewards of what you have. [00:23:35] This was the old bargaining Jacob. He couldn't help it. Even when God himself revealed himself to him, even when he saw something which many believers have not seen. As to the nature of the house of God, as a place of communication between God and man and man and God, a means of intercourse between heaven and earth, he had to bark, you do this, this and this. I will do this and this and this. [00:24:06] And then, of course, we have his uncle Laban. [00:24:09] As I have often said, when God wanted to cure Jacob of the twistedness that was in him, he sent him to the other great twister in the Middle east, his uncle Laban. Of course, the thing ran in the family. [00:24:27] I'm not being anti semitic, I'm just stating facts. After all, Abraham, with all his nobility, had passed off Sarah as his half sister. [00:24:39] She was his half sister, but he actually said, this is my sister. It was a deliberate deception of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh was very annoyed about it. [00:24:49] That dear Isaac, who was in many ways so innocent, in some ways so naive, so sweet, even he passed off his wife as his sister. You see, it runs in the family. [00:25:08] Now, Rebecca. It is perfectly true. Rebecca was an altogether different kettle of fish, if I may so use the phrase. She was a real disease. She was sweet. She was beautiful. She was lovely. It was the most wonderful thing that Isaac had ever set his eyes upon in the female world. [00:25:30] But anyone who could scheme against her own husband in the way Rebecca did, even if she thought she was bringing to pass and fulfilling the purpose of God and the promise of God concerning her son, Jacob, that is some schema, that is some manipulator. [00:25:54] That is some deceiver. [00:25:59] Laban, her brother, was worse than her. [00:26:06] For 20 years, Jacob twisted Laban, and Laban twisted Jacob. [00:26:16] You think this is just a story? No, no, no. [00:26:21] Because it was all to do with the love of Jacob's whole life, Rachel. [00:26:29] Seven years he worked for her. And when finally in the great feast, you know, with all the wine that flowed and ever finally, he almost fell asleep with exhaustion. After one of these long Middle east weddings, he woke up the next morning to find it was Leo that was in bed with him and not Rachel. No, I will not pursue this matter too far. [00:26:56] Except to say this, that Leah was in this deception as much as Laban. There is no way that you could say this was all Laban's work. Laban must have said to Leah, Leah, you're going to be on the shelf forever. You're never going to marry. You're going to be a spinster to your old age unless you listen to me. Keep your big mouth shut, walk like your sister, dress like your sister, and by tomorrow morning it'll be over. [00:27:29] Youll be his wife. So it happened for Jacob. [00:27:36] It was the first great blow that fell upon him. [00:27:42] He couldnt believe that his uncle, his own uncle, his mothers brother, could deceive him in matters to do with him. [00:27:54] Have you ever. I can hear him say, have you ever heard of such a thing? [00:28:00] I have loved Jake. Rachel for seven years. Worked my hands to the bone. [00:28:08] And that wicked uncle of mine, he got Leo into the act instead of Rachel. [00:28:20] It never occurred to Jacob that he had deceived his twin mother. [00:28:27] That he had deceived his own half blind aged father. [00:28:34] It was the beginning of his waking up. [00:28:40] You know the story. He worked for another seven years for Rachel. [00:28:46] You know the whole story. [00:28:49] I dont quite know what he did about the sheep, but you can read it. Its all there in the book. [00:28:57] Something that apparently sheep farmers dont know about today. [00:29:02] He put strips of almond rod and willow and other things in front of the mating rams and sheep. And they came out speckled black. [00:29:14] Because the bargain was Jacob should take all the speckled grizzled or a black sheep. [00:29:24] And Laban would have all the white sheep. [00:29:29] It was amazing. [00:29:32] The flock spread an unbelievably great number, grizzled, black and striped goats and sheep. [00:29:43] And poor old Laban was impoverished, and Jacob became richer and richer. And in the end, there's such a bad feeling between him and the close family of Laban. He decided, it's time to go. And the lord said to Jacob, you go back to the land of your. And, you know, he went back. And they hadn't gone very far in enormous fear of meeting Esau, when suddenly they saw that dust arising and men furiously driving. And Jacob wondered, who is it? Who is it, this posse of men driving through the desert at enormous speed? And they said, it's Laban and his men. What does Laban want? What does Uncle Laban want? Does he come to say goodbye to us? [00:30:29] And when Laban finally gets there, you know the story. Uncle Laban says to Jacob, is it enough that youve taken my two daughters, that youve taken my grandchildren from me, that youve taken all my flocks? Youve robbed me of everything, impoverished me? Now youve taken the family idols. [00:30:47] Now, in those days, the family idols were small things, but they were title deeds to property. [00:30:53] And Jacob was scandalized. He said, I have everything else I might have taken, but I wouldn't touch your idols. Search everything. [00:31:04] And Uncle Laban, who knew his nephew very well, searched everything. [00:31:10] He went through every tent. He went through every bag. He went all the way through. And finally came to dear, sweet, demure little Rachel sitting on a camel saddle. And she said, I'm not feeling well apart. [00:31:30] Okay? He said, I I understand. [00:31:36] And he left her. And under the saddle were all the family idol. Rachel had stolen the lot. [00:31:45] It was a terrible shock to Jacob. [00:31:49] Jacob had never thought that Rachel was capable of such deceit, capable of such manipulation, capable of such scheming. He thought she was the purest, sweetest thing that ever graced the world. [00:32:05] It was the second stage in his enlightenment. Well, third, really. First, he'd seen himself in labor, then he saw himself in Lear, and finally he saw himself in Rachel. [00:32:19] Then he was ready for the Lord. [00:32:27] In every servant of God's life, in every child of God's life, there has to come an appointment with God. [00:32:40] There comes a time when the sweetest of us, seemingly the most noble of us, the most gifted of us, finally recognize that we are Jacob. Do you not think it is amazing that the people of God were never called Abraham, that the people of God were never called Isaac, but they were called not once but again and again and again and again. Jacob, Jacob and Israel. These two names for the people of God. And the most interesting thing of all is that it is the name Jacob that is used even more than Israel. [00:33:30] It is the God of Jacob that is our refuge when the Lord of hosts is with us. It is the mighty one of Jacob that defends us and delivers us. Isn't it amazing? Do you not think I find this whole thing? [00:33:54] Is this flesh not always the problem in the child of God's life? [00:34:02] It is not your sin. Your sin can be confessed and put away. It is not even your failings and weaknesses, even those can somehow be tempered and moderated. It is my flesh, your flesh that's the problem. Gifted, talented, tireless, manipulative. Self, self, self. And the extraordinary thing is that so much about Christianity is oriented to self. It's almost as if God sent his son into the world simply for myself, life, that I might be saved, that I might be forgiven, that I might somehow be fulfilled and satisfied. So my whole mentality is the whole of heaven revolves around me. The whole of the kingdom of God revolves around me. God himself is there for me. The savior is there only for me. I'm not saying that he did not come into the world to save you, that he does not love you. What I'm saying is this, that when he saved you, he saved you to be reoriented away from self to him, to serve him. Then it is his purpose, his destiny, his joy, his satisfaction, his fulfillment, that its an altogether different way of viewing things. [00:35:42] If you read your Bible carefully, you will find what Im saying is right for all things in the end will be summed up in the messiah. He will be everything in every one. It is amazing. [00:35:59] Then the great purpose of God will go forward to its fulfillment. We don't even know what the ultimate goal of God is, why he created these universes, why he created you and me. Only we know that we fell and we became a different order of human being. Self centered, egoistic, somehow or other, always self seeking, even when we're gifted, even when we're talented, even when we have great capability. [00:36:31] Jacob the impossible. [00:36:34] Do you think you're impossible? [00:36:37] If I knew you better, I could tell you. [00:36:41] I know I am. [00:36:43] Are you impossible? [00:36:45] Any child of God who has walked with the Lord only a little way will know they are impossible. [00:36:53] They destroy every single thing that the Lord ever gives to them. They spoil it, they turn it away, they mar it. Is it not true? [00:37:03] Is it not true that a servant of God cannot go very far before he discovers that the real problem is his own flesh. Life with sin. We know what to do with weaknesses and failings. We know how to cope. [00:37:22] But with this tireless, spontaneous, almost automatic expression of self centredness even when it hides in seeming modest people. I'm not getting at anybody, but people who sit at the back are normally the people who want to rule the church. [00:37:53] They creep into the back, they sit there because this kind of modesty I am very modest. I am. I don't want to show myself who I am or what I am but in fact there is within every one of us something that wants to come out and reign. [00:38:19] Now, my dear friends, is this not a picture of Israel? [00:38:30] There are few peoples on the face of the earth more gifted, more talented, more capable, more tireless than the jewish people. [00:38:43] Truly we are the sons of Jacob. [00:38:50] We can't help it. [00:38:53] We always come to the top. [00:38:59] You say, I don't like this kind of preaching. [00:39:03] This is racism. No, no, no. I'm just telling you facts. [00:39:09] Jews normally come to the top. [00:39:14] It's almost as if they cannot help it. [00:39:18] Einstein and Freud to name only two among so many. Oh dear, dear, dear. [00:39:31] With the nuclear bomb and freudian psychology. [00:39:41] It is an amazing story. Jacob the impossible. [00:39:50] I hope I've made my point because my next point I want to make Mandeline even more. [00:40:00] God knows all about Jacob. [00:40:04] The interesting thing is God knew Jacob better than Jacob knew himself. Jacob was totally unaware of himself when he deceived his brother Esau he didn't think for a moment about it. When he deceived his old aged father he didn't think a moment. The only time he was sad was when he had to flee. [00:40:33] Some christians think that when they make a discovery about themselves it is God whos making the discovery that God is appalled by what he finds inside of you. You see, suddenly you see yourself as a real Jacob. You see the impossibility of your old nature, of your flesh even if it's noble and gifted and a 1001 and one other thing. And then you think the Lord says oh my goodness, I wish I hadn't saved that person. [00:41:09] I had no idea that was in them. Now it's coming out into the open. Now I see what a mess they are. I see how evil they can be, how capricious, how deceitful, how scheming. [00:41:22] If I had known this I would never have chosen them in the first place. [00:41:27] I would never have saved them. You see how ridiculous it is because you laugh because God said Jacob I have love. [00:41:49] What is it? [00:41:51] What is it that God loves? It's a very interesting thing that the New Testament says. [00:41:58] The pure in heart shall see God. [00:42:08] The most extraordinary thing about Jacob is he saw the Lord. [00:42:11] He said, I have seen the face of God and I have lived. [00:42:20] This makes us realize that there was something deep, deep down within Jacob that was pure. [00:42:28] Deeper than his flesh life, deeper than his self centredness, was a desire for God, a genuine desire for God, a pure desire for God. [00:42:46] I can only tell you this. [00:42:49] There was nothing in Jacob. God did not know when he chose him. [00:42:55] There was no discovery that God made later on about Jacob. He knew it all. It was Jacob who did not know. It was Jacob who had to be stripped of layer after layer after layer until finally he stood naked before the angel of God and God loved him. [00:43:24] Such is the love of God. [00:43:32] God loves you, amazing as it may seem. [00:43:38] And God loves me even more, amazing as it may seem. [00:43:46] It is amazing to me, truly amazing, because God knows exactly what makes you tick. [00:43:57] He knows exactly what you're capable of and still he loves you. Now bring it to Israel. Israel. Jacob the impossible there are people who have worked amongst Jews for years and have given up and are now working amongst the Arabs. [00:44:14] And I'm very thankful that they're working amongst the Arabs. [00:44:20] I wonder whether they should have worked amongst us in the first place. [00:44:24] The point is that there is a whole world, an arab world, to beloved, to be served and to be brought to the Lord. [00:44:37] But my dear friends, we are an impossible people. [00:44:44] Anybody who knows us from the inside knows just how impossible we are. [00:44:52] But God loves us. [00:44:55] His last word in the old canon was Jacob. By your love I, the Lord, change not. Therefore, o ye sons of Jacob, are not consumed. Well, I must move on because I want to talk about Jacob into Israel. [00:45:19] It is the persevering love of God. [00:45:25] There is no other power on earth or in heaven, or in the whole universe, or in the universes of universes that can turn and change Jacob into an Israel. [00:45:44] Only the persevering love of God to create the earth with its unbelievable complexity was nothing to the Lord. [00:46:05] To create out of nothing, a universe was nothing for the Lord. [00:46:14] In one sense it cost him nothing. [00:46:19] But to save a human being cost him everything. [00:46:27] And to change a Jacob into an Israel, it costs God everything. [00:46:43] I have already spoken of the steps. [00:46:46] I sometimes wondered about Jacob. [00:46:49] I sometimes wonder whether later in his life he thought of his beloved mother. He loved her. [00:46:58] I wonder whether that was the preparation, the preparatory work he did question what she said, you know, he did it. [00:47:15] He never saw his mother again. [00:47:26] I often wonder whether later he thought about it. It was a preparatory work. [00:47:31] Only later would it come back to him with the full force of what our nature really is, when it is self centred and self serving and self fulfilling. [00:47:48] Certainly when it came to Laban, that was the first stripping, and when he came to Leah, that was the second. [00:47:59] And all the arguments and bitterness between Leah and Rachel, and then when it came to Rachel, it was the final. [00:48:13] After Jacob became Israel, he lived for many years, and that whole work went on progressively. [00:48:28] He saw himself in all his sons. [00:48:33] Read the story. [00:48:35] Oh, what they did, their deception, their manipulation. [00:48:45] It was Jacob in his son. [00:48:49] The first with his mother was preparatory. The last with his sons and daughter were progressive, even after he'd been chained. But the three steps, that's where he came to Jabba. [00:49:11] No one will ever come to their jabbok. It's a ford, a crossroads. They will never come to a crisis in their life into which God will bring them into a new dimension of spiritual experience, understanding a new union with himself in the Messiah. [00:49:30] Never will any child of God come to a place where God can do something in them that radiates out of them for the rest of their lives. [00:49:42] They have to be prepared. [00:49:48] When Jacob came to Jabba and the angel of the Lord, he was alone, and you have to be alone. [00:49:56] I'm not against ministry to people. I'm not against all this other that goes on in christian circles. But I want to tell you something. If you want something permanent in your life, you have to be alone with the Lord. [00:50:12] In the end. There is no other way. I'm all for ministry. I'm all for hands being laid on people where deliverance is needed deliverance, and where healing is needed healing, and where memories need to be healed and all the rest of it. I don't have any problem with that. But if a person is to be changed into an Israel, they have to, in the end, be absolutely alone with God. No one else can help them. They come to the place where all the pops have gone, and finally they're alone with God. And when the angel of the Lord comes, in sheer desperation, they hold him and will not let him go. [00:50:55] One of the most incredible things is when the angel said to Jacob, what is your name? Of course, the angel knew who he was. It was ridiculous. The angel of the Lord had planned this. All along. It was the Lord Jesus. All along this had been planned. God knew every step had prepared Jacob. Then the angel of the Lord says, what is your name? [00:51:18] Jacob could have said, in that moment when he loathed himself, when he was repelled by himself, when he had seen himself so clearly in his uncle and in his two wives, he could have said, I'm Abraham's grandson. [00:51:38] What a get out that would have been. [00:51:41] I'm Abraham's grandson. That should put. Give me some credit with the angel of the Lord. He could have said, I'm Isaac's son. [00:51:52] He could have given him credit. He said, I'm the grabber. [00:52:00] I'm the cheater. [00:52:03] I'm the twister. [00:52:06] I'm the supplanter. [00:52:10] And the angel of the Lord said, you shall no more be called grabber, cheater, supplanter or twister. [00:52:20] You shall be called Israel. [00:52:27] Prince, you have persevered. [00:52:33] Beloved friends, this is so tremendous, this whole thing. [00:52:39] Consider the love of God, the purpose of God, the election of God, the promise of the Lord. [00:52:53] It's all there. [00:53:00] When Jacob came out of that experience, he never called it my brokenness. [00:53:11] He never called it my shattering. [00:53:16] He never called. He never called it my healing. [00:53:21] He never called it my deliverance. He called it the face of God. [00:53:39] He had seen the Lord. [00:53:47] From that day on. [00:53:49] He limped. [00:53:53] He was lame. [00:53:59] His hip was dislocated. [00:54:08] From that day to the day he died in Egypt, he lived. [00:54:19] But it was the glory of God that shone out of him. [00:54:25] Beloved friends, it is the purpose of God to change our poor old Israel into the wheel. Israel of God. [00:54:42] It is the persevering, tireless love of God, undying love of God that will not let this people go. [00:54:54] He will take them through thick and thin, through storm and sunshine. He will, in the end, strip of every prop they have, whether it be the United States or the European Union or any other prop. He will bring them to a place of such disillusionment, such disappointment with themselves, that they will fall into the arms of God. [00:55:29] In the end, they will. I dont know how it will happen, but I have no doubt at all in my spirit, that at some point God will bring our nation to the place where it is desperate. [00:55:48] Desperate. [00:55:50] It can turn no other place. It will be alone with the angel of the Lord. [00:55:57] It is not a question of election. That is in the book. It even in the New Testament says, as touching the election, they are beloved of God for the father's sake, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. [00:56:11] That is in the New Testament, let alone in the Old Testament. It is not a question of the purpose of God that is everywhere in scripture, that from every tongue and kindred and people and nation there should come those who would become fellow heirs and fellow members. [00:56:28] It's everywhere in the word of God that the salvation of God should go to the ends of the earth and that there would be people who would call themselves by the name of Jacob from amongst the nations and surname themselves with the name of Israel. [00:56:48] Thats in the book. [00:56:50] Its all there in the book. [00:56:53] The problem is that Jacob is impossible. [00:56:59] But there will come a day when God will so deal with Israel as she is in the flesh, that she will be alone with God in that day. [00:57:16] It will be the face of God that will be revealed. [00:57:23] There is a wonderful phrase in the second letter of the apostle Paul to the Corinthian Church, chapter four, verse six, that speaks of the knowledge of the glory, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus the Messiah. He says it has shone into our hearts, shone into our hearts every time we light the Sabbath candles. I always think of this scripture. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus the messiah that has shone into our hearts. [00:58:12] There will come a day when there will be such a revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus the Messiah. It will transform jewish people all over the world. [00:58:25] Saved by the grace of God. The same finished work of the Messiah which you've been saved. It will come, you mark my word. [00:58:36] I think it's not a question of the election, nor the purpose of God for Israel. Nor is it a question of miracles. My goodness. May ye think of Israel's modern history. Think of the desert that's blossoming like a rose. Think of the wilderness which for the first time is inhabited. The first time in thousands of years the wilderness of Judea and other wildernesses are actually inhabited. Even in the desert there are communities now living in the Aravah and things. It's amazing. I think of miracle after miracle. I think of the forests that cover our land which once was eroded hills and malarial swampland. I think of the tons of fruit that every night are put on great cargo, jumbo jets, seven hundred and forty seven s and flown to Holland to be distributed throughout the capitals of Europe. Tons of flowers, tons of vegetables, tons of fruit. It is an amazing story, miracle after miracle after miracle. I think of the amazing coming back from over 94 different nations, far north, far south, far east, far west. They have been drawn back by some invisible magnet, back to the very land from which our forefathers were exiled. This miracle after miracle after miracle. I think of the recreation of the state of Israel on the 14 May 1948. It was a miracle. I think of the reunification of Jerusalem, the 7 June 1967. It was a miracle. I think of the Yom Kippur war. What a miracle it was that God delivered us in that war from liquidation. [01:00:21] No, my friends, when Jacob left his uncle Laban and was on his way to meet Esau, he met companies of angels. [01:00:35] He actually gave a hebrew name to it. Mahanai. [01:00:40] Encampments of angels. [01:00:44] There have been angels all the way through Israel's modern history. Angled hands that have been seen in the Yom Kippur war, holding back the syrian forces. Other times, incredible things that have happened. But still Jacob is impossible. [01:01:03] Still he is impossible. Isn't that amazing? You would have thought these miracles and these angelic visitations and all these incredible fulfillments of the prophetic word of God through our prophets. This would convert people left, right and center. No, you don't know just how impossible Jacob is. [01:01:26] But there will come a day when God will finally turn this Jacob into Israel. [01:01:38] Well, I must finish. [01:01:40] I don't know if I've gone over my time wards. I'm such a bad person and there's no clock in this place. I always think this is the most blessed place for any preacher to preach in. [01:01:54] I imagine Doctor Campbell Morgan and Doctor Martin nor Jones. [01:02:00] And I'm glad that the present pastor, Artie Kendall apparently has followed them. [01:02:07] But my dear friends, I just want to say only a few things. Finally, I want my final point. [01:02:16] There's a little phrase in Isaiah, chapter 33 and verse 23. [01:02:24] I dont know how many of you have ever been gripped by it. The lame takes the prey. [01:02:35] When Charles Wesley had his great experience with the Lord, which changed his life and made him one of the great sweet singers of the church of God, he wrote a hymn on this, the very last verse he said, and the lame takes the brain. [01:03:02] He also had an experience where the Lord crippled him spiritually. [01:03:14] O beloved friends, there will come a day when Jacob the twister becomes Jacob the blesser. [01:03:29] Jacob stole blessings he didnt give them, but it says in the New Testament, by faith, Jacob, he blessed the sons of Joseph and worshipped, leaning on his tongue. A person. Listen carefully to me. A person who is self centered, self assertive, self promoting, self fulfilling can never be a true worshiper. [01:04:06] Or they may be caught up in all the emotional mayhem that sometimes takes place in our services, where we are carried along by a great tide of music and singing and you may kid yourself that you become a worshipper. But gods idea of worship is. I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is you, your spiritually intelligent worship, that is worship in spirit and in truth. Then you are freed from yourself. [01:04:52] Then you can truly worship the Lord. [01:04:57] Then you can be lost in wonder, love and prayer. [01:05:02] Thats what Jacob became. [01:05:07] Its interesting that he leaned upon his bedpost. He was crippled. [01:05:13] The actual Hebrew says he leaned on his staff, but doesnt matter, its the same thing. [01:05:18] He was crippled. [01:05:20] He became a worshipper because he was lame. [01:05:25] He became a blesser because he was lame. [01:05:29] The old Jacob could not be a true prince of God. [01:05:37] But he became a prince, a true prince. [01:05:42] Father of the House of Israel. [01:05:45] His twelve sons are now forever, for all eternity, immortalized in the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem. [01:06:01] It is amazing, isn't it? [01:06:06] Jacob the twister has become Jacob the prince, Jacob the worshipper, Jacob the blesser. Do you know one of the most moving things for me in the whole record of Jacob's life is when the great pharaoh comes and bows before Jacob. And Jacob puts his hands upon him and blesses him before. If Jacob and Daddy come to know Pharaoh, Pharaoh would have had to look out for he would have taken all his flocks, camels, sheep, goats, gold and silver and I don't know what else. [01:06:54] But now he becomes a blessing. [01:07:01] A blessing to his son Joseph and a blessing to his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh. [01:07:11] Jacob the twister has become Jacob the overcomer. [01:07:19] Is that not for all of us tremendous encouragement, especially not only for ourselves in our whole our lives, but for our fellowships, for the work of the Lord that we might be in and above all for Israel. [01:07:33] Is it possible that Israel will finally become a blesser of the whole world? [01:07:41] Could it be possible that in the end Israel would become a true worshipper of God in spirit and in truth, a prince with God? Yes. [01:07:54] And it will be due not to our endeavors nor to our organizations, valuable as they may be and necessary as they may be. [01:08:06] It will be due wholly to the untiring, eternal, undying love of God. [01:08:22] Some of you know that my brother in law was a crystal engraver and a very gifted one. [01:08:31] And when I finally went back to Israel he made a beautiful bowl that he himself fashioned and engraved. [01:08:45] And the center of it was a huge star of David. [01:08:50] And round the edge was all his handwork. [01:08:56] It occupied one of the principal places in our main room. Until one day, strangely, the whole CenTral Lamp in the CeIling fell out of the ceIling. We never found out how it happened or why, for it was firmly put there. It was an old sabbath lamp that you used to light 2 hours before the sabbath and keep going right through till 2 hours after. The old oil lamp with five or six lamps around it. It fell on the crystal and shattered it. [01:09:36] I was absolutely heartbroken when I saw that beautiful PieCe of work, which I knew was irreplaceable, and it was shattered. And then the Lord said to me, so shall it happen to Israel. [01:09:56] I will bring them in the end to a place where I will shatter them, break them, devastate them. But you see, the Star of David is intact. [01:10:12] So in my Home, the Shattered ThIs bowl is up on a place where you can see it, where light shines through it. And often people will say to me, why have you got that broken bowl up there? [01:10:27] And I say to them, because that bowl is a testimony that one of these days God will break Israel and the lame will take the play. [01:10:45] May God give you a new burden for Israel, a long term view of her. [01:10:54] May God so deal with you and with me, that we shall become intercessors with God persevering until finally he fulfills his heart's desire for this people. [01:11:18] I pray that if you know you're a Jacob, you may this night be comforted that God knows you're a Jacob much better than you, and he loves you and he will not let you go. [01:11:37] He is doing a work in your life that he will not give up until it is complete and until he has changed you into the likeness of his son. [01:11:53] May these poor words of mine be used by the Holy Spirit. Spirit, to comfort those who need comforting, challenge those who need challenging, and bring all of us to a new understanding of his tireless, undying, and persevering love for Jacob. [01:12:19] Thank you. [01:12:24] It.