In Ephesians 4:1:
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called.
“I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord.” In Ephesians 3:1, Paul had spoken of himself as the prisoner of the Lord. Now he takes a step forward and speaks of himself as the prisoner in the Lord. We have a picture of someone reigning with Christ. He has found a dimension, a sphere of glory, in the Lord. Although he is a prisoner, he looks upon himself as a prisoner in the Lord.
He says that we might walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called. Then, in 1 Thessalonians 2:12:
To the end that ye should walk worthily of God, Who calleth you into His own kingdom and glory.
That you may walk worthily of God, Who calleth you into His own kingdom and glory. Now remember what we said last night about kingdom. We have all been born into the kingdom; we are all subjects of the kingdom. What does it mean, then, that you should walk worthily of God, Who calleth you into His own kingdom? It must mean more than just being ruled over.
Surely it has this thought: that we have been called into His own kingship and glory, into reigning with Him.
Then look at Philippians 3:13-14:
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Literally, the on-high calling in Christ Jesus. Now, have you noticed that? He speaks of something here: toward the goal, unto the prize of the on-high calling in Christ Jesus.
There is something here that the apostle Paul says is worth counting everything but refuse for. He speaks of winning Christ, of being found in Christ. Yet we might well say, “Paul, you are saved. You are already saved. You have already won Christ. Christ is already yours. Why then, in this wonderful third chapter of Philippians, does he speak about letting go of the things which are behind and pressing on toward the goal, unto the prize of this on-high calling in Christ Jesus?”
Well, I think last night I sought, as far as I was enabled by the Holy Spirit, to point out to you that this calling of God is not just to do with being saved. It is not just to do with knowing the Lord. It is not even to know the resources of the Lord, to know union with God in Christ. It is not even to be built together, although that is very much part of it.
It is that we might learn, having been saved, getting to know the Lord Jesus Christ, in union with Him, experiencing His resources, being built together into His eternal home, that we might learn to reign with Him. We might learn to administer the will and the mind of God, to possess the kingdom, to really bring to bear the throne of God upon the earth and the circumstances in which we are found.
I would like to take you to a few more Scriptures that have bearing on this matter. Second Thessalonians 1:5:
Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God; to the end that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer.
Now, the kingdom of God has been given to us by grace. We are born into it by the grace of God. It is not through works; it is not through our zeal; it is not through our devotion. So why does it say that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer?
It must have this other thought in it: that ye may be counted worthy of the kingship of God, for which ye also suffer; that ye may be counted worthy of this power to govern and to control.
Look again at 2 Peter 1:11:
For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Is that not an interesting word? “For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” We have been born of God. In that sense, we are in the kingdom of God. But here the apostle Peter speaks of having a richly supplied entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Second Timothy 4:18:
The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto His heavenly kingdom: to Whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Delivered from every evil work and preserved unto His heavenly kingdom. Are you being preserved unto His heavenly kingdom? Are you in danger—not of losing your salvation, but of losing your place in the government of God?
Acts 14:22 says:
Confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.
Romans 8:15-17 says:
For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God:
and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him.
Second Timothy 2:12:
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.
Then I want you to look at two other Scriptures that are not on the board. First Corinthians 9:23:
And I do all things for the gospel’s sake, that I may be a joint partaker thereof.
Know ye not that they that run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? Even so run, that ye may attain.
And every man that striveth in the games exerciseth self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so fight I, as not beating the air:
but I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.
An incorruptible crown—that has something to do with a throne. What does he mean, rejected concerning salvation? In the same letter, 1 Corinthians 3:14-15, he says:
If any man’s work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.
So the apostle Paul was quite clear in this same letter that you do not lose your salvation. But he says you can preach to others, fellowship with others, instruct others, and yourself be a reject as far as the throne of Christ is concerned. You are not qualified finally to sit down in His throne with Him.
Now let us bow together in a word of prayer, shall we?
Father, we bow together here in Thy presence, and we want very simply, all of us, Lord, to recognise our weakness—weakness in speaking, weakness, Lord, in hearing. We need Thee, Lord. We cannot come to Thy Word with our natural mind.
We know, Father, that this whole time will be a loss if we depend upon our own resources, upon our own energy, whether in speaking or hearing. But, Father, Thou hast made a provision for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, a provision of anointing. We stand together in that grace for this time and in that anointing for this time, that, Lord, we may receive from Thee.
Make this time, Lord, a meeting with Thyself. Write Thy Word indelibly upon our hearts. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I want this morning to take up this matter of our calling and kingship, or overcoming, as we see it in some of the lives of the saints of God in the Old Testament. Through each one of these lives, as recorded by the Holy Spirit, the Lord has revealed and illustrated essential characteristics of kingship, or overcoming.
We must never forget that, in God’s mind, the overcomer is not the extraordinary. He or she is God’s normal, not His especial. In other words, it is not just some kind of elite that has been chosen to be overcomers. Rather, what God really desired for all, He only in the end got in a few. You understand? And they went through for the others.
The idea that somehow or other the overcomer is something so especial that they are divided altogether from the rest of the people, I cannot find so much in the Word of God. But I find again and again, as we see it in the Word of God, that these people lay down their lives that the rest might come into the blessing.
The purpose of God was fulfilled to the blessing of all because either one, or a family, or a few, or a remnant, gave God the ground in their lives to do something—to fulfil His purpose, to set everything forward a further stage.
Thus, it does not matter where you turn in the Word of God, you find these characteristics of true kingship. Now, I have a great task this morning, because I want really to take four lives and just give a bird’s-eye view. Oh, I would love to spend one session on each of the lives, but we would never get where we ought to get in these days. So bear with me.
I am going to speak this morning, if the Lord enables me, about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. They represent the first phase of God’s dealings with a people in view. Up till Abraham, it was all just individuals. But when God chose Abraham, when God selected Abraham, when the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, in Ur of the Chaldees, it was with a people in view.
We discover in these four lives the fundamental characteristics of kingship. It does not matter where we turn in the rest of the Word; we find that in these four lives we have the essential characteristics of overcoming, or the essential characteristics of true kingship.
Abraham is called, of course, the father of all who believe. If you turn to the New Testament, in 1 John 5:4-5, we have a verse which the life and character of Abraham marvellously illustrates:
For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith.
And who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
“Whatsoever is begotten of God”—not whosoever—“whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world.” Abraham had to learn this from the very beginning.
It was the God of glory that appeared to Abraham whilst he was still in Ur of the Chaldees and said to him, “Get thee out of thy father’s house, out of thy kindred, into a land that I will show you.” It all began with revelation. It began with vision.
Whenever God is going to do something, the first thing He does is to grant a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of His Son. Otherwise, we are found playing at churches all the time. We are seeing things that we get in books and then trying to put them into operation. We are setting up things. We are setting up a kind of Christian life.
We get the thirty-four steps to victory. We get the steps into the fullness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We are all about setting it up, setting it up, setting it up, setting it up, instead of seeing something in God, seeing it in terms of Christ.
When we see Christ as the Christian life, when we see Christ as the salvation of God, when we see Christ as the fullness of God, when we see Christ as the Baptiser with the Holy Spirit, when we see Christ as the One Who gives us the power to manifest the gifts of the Spirit, when we see Christ as the overcomer, then we realise that we cannot do it. He has got to do it.
We fall at His feet, as it were, as one dead. Do you understand what I am trying to say? When it is mentally appreciated knowledge, we can get on with the job. We see something, we read something, we study something, we mug it up, as it were, we get it clear, and then we get into it and we do it.
All the Christian scene is filled with so much that is outwardly biblical, but inwardly its origin is not God; it is flesh.
There were three things in the life of Abraham: the land, the city, and the seed.
First of all, God said, “It was a land that I will show thee.” Then He said to him in one place—oh, if we only had the time, I would take you to all the Scriptures; but if you want them, come and ask me afterwards—the Lord said to him, “Lift up your eyes. Look to the west, look to the east, look to the north, look to the south. All that thou seest will I give thee.”
But God never gave him a single clod of that land. He had to buy a little field at Machpelah in which to bury his beloved Sarah. When he died, he did not own a single bit of the land. Yet God said to him, “Get thee out into a land that I will show thee,” and said, “I will give it thee.”
Poor Abraham, even had to buy the plot of ground in which he buried his beloved Sarah. He was tested to the nth degree on this matter. Could he overcome? Would he stay in the land, sojourning in tents instead of having some permanent dwelling? Or would he go down to Egypt?
Well, most of you who know something of the life of Abraham know how he was tested. What about the city? It says in Hebrews 11:10:
For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
But Abraham never saw that city physically. He did not even get possession of Jerusalem, although it was still there. You remember Melchizedek came out of Jerusalem to meet him, but it did not become his. He never even saw the symbol of that eternal reality. It never came into his possession.
The land, the city, and what about the seed? God said, “In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” But dear Abraham was eighty years of age and he had not got a child. Sarah was seventy. They had no child at all.
Do you not think that he must have been tested to the nth degree? “Well, well, well, what is this? Surely I have been deceived. Surely I have been deluded. God said, ‘Get thee out into a land.’ He said, ‘Look to the south, to the north, to the east, to the west; I give it to thee.’ And He has not given it to me. I have lived here for years. Still I am in a tent. Still I am living in a land as if it is not mine.”
Then he says, “I am looking for a city which hath the foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. I have not yet physically seen it.” And God says that in him shall all the families of the earth be blessed, and he has not one single child. “I must be deluded.”
Now here in this country, where you have such a success complex, can you imagine what we would have done with Abraham? My, we would have put him through the mincemeat machine. We would have got hold of him and said, “Abraham, Abraham, you fool, what have you got to show for this vision of yours? What have you got to show for this calling of God?”
“You have not got a land. You have not got a city. You have not even got a single child. Where are all these people that should be blessed in you? Where are all these converts? Come on, show them to us.” At the end of his life, he had only one son of promise and one son of the flesh.
Whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world.
It had to be not only of God; the very fulfilment of the vision had to be of God. Its origin, its development, its fulfilment had to be of God.
Now, dear child of God, the hardest thing you and I learn in this matter of kingship is that only that which has its origin in God goes through. Only that which has its source in the life of God, in the purpose of God, in the work of God, goes through into the kingdom. Nothing else goes through. It is wood, hay, and stubble to be burnt up. Only that which has its origin in God.
Now, if you had seen Ishmael, he may have looked more like Abraham than Isaac. Why, as you saw little Ishmael running along, you might have said, “Well, well, well, I can see whose son that is. He looks just like Abraham. He has got Abraham’s nose. He has got Abraham’s walk. You can see it is Abraham’s son.”
But if you saw Isaac, you might have said, “Whose son is that?” He may have been just like his mother, Sarah. In fact, he may have been rather like his grandfather, or perhaps on his maternal side he may have been like his uncle.
If you had gone by outward appearances, you could have said, “Ishmael, Ishmael, of course he is of Abraham. He must be. Look, he is the split image of Abraham.” Ah, Ishmael will not go through. Ishmael spells trouble. He never goes through to the fulfilment of God’s purpose. He never ends up in the city of God. He never comes to the throne.
Isaac may outwardly not look like Abraham, but he is the son of promise. His origin is in God, born of God as it were, developed by God, watched over by God. He has to go through.
Later on, there comes a time when God puts Abraham to the test again in this matter of faith. He says to Abraham, “Abraham, take thine only son and offer him up as a burnt offering.” Can you imagine what that must have done to Abraham?
Why, had it been me, I would have immediately said, “This is the enemy. Watch out now, watch out. God has kept you waiting till you were ninety-nine years of age for this son of promise. Do you think God would ask you to make him a burnt offering—to take up the one in whom all the families of the earth are going to be blessed, that in the end thy seed will be as the stars of heaven for multitude and as the grains of sand on the seashore?”
Yet he took him up. It says in Hebrews that he believed that if he slew him, God would give him back in resurrection.
You see, once something is born of God, do not think that our clammy hands cannot get onto it. There is many a real work of God that began with the Lord, but before long the servants of the Lord have got the clammy hands of their flesh onto it. They destroy it.
Overcoming faith.
Whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
And who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
You want to know something about kingship? You want to know something about overcoming? My dear friend, it must begin with this: obedience to heavenly vision. It must begin with vision.
What we all need, as the people of God, above everything else is divine vision. We need to see the Lord. We need to see the purpose of God in the Lord. We need to see all the resources and riches of God in the Lord. We need to see the house of God in the Lord. We need to see the eternal purpose of God in the Lord.
Do you understand? To see it with the eye of faith, and then to be apprehended because of what we have seen.
There are people who see things in a mental way, in an academic way. What happens? There comes later on disillusionment, disappointment, problem, difficulty, and they as easily in the end let go of what they have academically seen.
But once you have really seen something by the Spirit of God, once you have really seen the Lord, it is as if you would commit spiritual suicide to contradict it.
Overcoming faith. That is one of the great lessons of Abraham’s life.
Whatsoever is begotten of God.
Tell me, dear child of God, is there in your life that which is begotten of God? Is there in your life that which is begotten of God? As companies of the Lord’s children, can we really say that it is begotten of God?
For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world.
Origin determines destiny.
Then we must pass on, if we are going to go through these lives, to Isaac. Poor Isaac. He is the forgotten one. He is like an open, fertile, sunlit valley linking two great mountain ranges: Abraham and Jacob.
Poor little Isaac is in between. Really, there is not much about dear Isaac. He has not got the rugged personality qualities, apparently, that his father had and his son had. But he has a tremendous lesson for us.
If you turn to Romans 5:17, we read this:
For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, even Jesus Christ.
Reign in life. Oh, my dear friend, do you hear that word? Not reign in truth—that is wonderful enough. Reign in life through One, even Jesus Christ.
What is the outstanding thing about Isaac? Well, if you read the record in Genesis, you will find that he is always digging wells. That is the one thing you see about dear Isaac. He spends his whole time digging wells. For the most part, the wells he digs were the wells that his father Abraham had dug.
If you want the Scriptures for that, turn to Genesis 26. Genesis 26:18:
And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father.
Then Genesis 26:20-22:
And the herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because they contended with him.
And they digged another well, and they strove for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah.
And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.
Genesis 26:25:
And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac’s servants digged a well.
Then Genesis 26:32-33:
And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac’s servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water.
And he called it Shibah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.
Isaac was always digging wells. Now we know all about the wells, do we not? We know that in John 4:14 the Lord Jesus said:
Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life.
A well of water, springing up unto eternal life. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to discover that we have got the well inside of us. We do not have to be all the time going to someone else, to a conference, or to a meeting; it is always outside of us. We have got a well inside, and it springs up.
There are times when it only just flows a little, and there are other times when it bursts up in full power.
The Lord Jesus said in John 7:37-38:
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.
He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
This spake He of the Spirit. Rivers of living water! What a tremendous thing it is when we have not just got a little trickle coming out, nor just a stream, nor even just a river—not even the River Thames, which we think is rather wonderful, since I live on it—or a river such as the Mississippi.
But supposing you had a Nile, an Amazon, a Yangtze, and a Yellow River all in one, flowing out from you in different directions. There is a part of the Himalayas where four of the greatest rivers of the world find their origin: the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy, and the Yangtze.
Think of it. Jesus did not say, “He that believeth on Me, there shall flow out of him a canal of living water.” He did not say there would flow out of him a Mississippi. He said, “He that believeth on Me, there shall flow out of him rivers of living water”—a Yangtze, a Brahmaputra, an Irrawaddy, an Amazon, a Nile, all of them flowing out in different directions.
Isaac teaches us one great lesson: there can be no kingship outside of the life of Christ. There can be no overcoming outside of resurrection life.
What is the lesson that he teaches us? That we must learn to be receivers. You cannot give what you have not received. The overcomer can only give what he has received. He takes from Abraham; he passes on to Jacob. He takes; he gives. He takes; he gives. It is a law with God.
You understand what I am trying to say? It is one of the hardest lessons we all learn: that all you and I are receivers. We do not like that. We like to be something much more dramatic, more colourful, more original.
But the one great lesson, if you want to know resurrection power and resurrection life, is that you must learn to be a vessel—just a vessel, no more.
You know, so many believers have problems with the Christian life. They say, “Oh, it is so difficult. It is so difficult. Really, I have got circumstances. If you knew my background, if you knew the temperament I have got, if you knew what I had inherited!”
It is interesting for me, whether I go all over the areas of the world that I travel, people come to me as if they are unique. They have got complexes, family backgrounds, inherited weaknesses, bosses, husbands, wives that are absolute tigers. They say, “You know, if I was only like so-and-so, I could get through. But God surely understands that I cannot get through.”
My dear friend, it is nonsense. It is rubbish.
God knows all about your circumstances. He has ordained them. Think of that. You have to be a good Calvinist in this matter. He has foreordained your circumstances, and He has brought you into those circumstances that you may not be beneath, but above only; that you may not be the tail, but the head, if you will hearken to the Lord your God and do all that He commands you.
You see, it is so simple. In one sense, it is so simple to live the Christian life. All you have to do is learn to be a receiver.
All the strain goes out when you learn to be one, because we have tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We do not like to be receivers. We want to be something in ourselves. We want the headquarters inside. We want to be something. We want to exhibit ourselves. We want to be powerful. We want to be visible. Sometimes we want to be accepted.
We come near the thought of just being a receiver. But that is all Isaac was, and that is why they called his name in Hebrew, Yitzhak—laughter. Laughter.
It happened so easily. They waited nearly a hundred years, but when he came, it was so easy. In the Living Bible, it puts it beautifully. It translates the Hebrew in modern language, and it says, “And Abraham threw a party.”
He threw a party. Once the child was born, it was so easy. All they had to do was care for the boy, feed the boy, comfort the child, look after him. He had life in him.
Laughter—the laughter of fulfilment, the laughter of experience, the laughter of the life of God. When you have got the life of God in you, you can laugh at impossibilities. You can laugh for the first time. You can smile and be happy.
Only a dead fish flows with the current. People tell me this world is so difficult, that everything is against them, that somehow they have got obstacles and problems. My dear friends, you have got a life in you by the grace of God which is designed to swim against the current. It can actually use the current flowing against it to go upstream.
So smile for the first time. Do not always go around saying, “Oh, it is so difficult.” What about this word, “reign in life through One, even Jesus Christ”?
There can be no overcoming apart from the life of God. Overcomers are not miserable people. If they have been in the furnace, they come out with no smell of burning on them. If they have known what it is to fast and to sorrow, they wash their faces and have a smiling countenance.
The overcomer is not someone who all the time is letting others know how difficult their circumstances are, how difficult the problems are that they face.
Do not get me wrong on this. There is a place for fellowship. There is a place for sharing. But you know the kind of thing I am talking about: where, if we are having a hard time, everyone—I mean everyone—has got to know. We are the faithful, and because we are the faithful, oh, it is terrible. We sing a hymn through gritted teeth.
But Isaac is laughter.
Abraham fell on the ground and laughed. He was such a natural man, Abraham. You can be when you know that it has to be born of God. You can just be yourself for the first time instead of trying to be that wonderful Christian. You can just sink back to being what you are in God.
He fell down on the ground when the Lord said to him, “You shall have a son; Sarah shall conceive him,” and he laughed. The Lord said to him, “Abraham, do not you laugh?” The Lord has humour. He said to him, “You shall call the boy Isaac—laughter.”
Do you remember the other time when the Lord came and spoke to Abraham with the two angels? Sarah was behind the tent flap, of course, listening. She heard the Lord say, “At the right time thy wife shall conceive and bear a son.” Behind the tent flap, Sarah laughed.
The Lord said through the tent flap, “Sarah, why didst thou laugh?” Through the tent flap, Sarah said, “I did not laugh.” The Lord said through the tent flap, “Thou didst.”
I think it is one of the most amusing little points in Genesis. Then the Lord said, “Because of this, you shall call him Isaac.” God is so incredibly gracious that He was not being sarcastic. What God was really saying was this: “When this boy is born, your mouth and your lives will be filled with laughter.”
Well, now I must go on if we are to get to the next person, and that is Jacob.
Our whole problem is this: we may have seen the purpose of God. We may have a vision and an understanding of the purpose of God in Christ. We may have seen it in terms of the Lord Jesus Christ. We may know that that is the key. Our problem is our self-life. Have you found that out yet?
Now, I can talk of Jacob. I feel I know it from inside.
We may have seen the purpose of God. We may have seen that it has got to be begotten of God. We can understand that faith is the big thing. We can understand that it is beholding Jesus as the Son of God which is the key. We know that it is to be a receiver, just to receive that life all the time inside of us, springing up.
But our problem is the strength of our self-life. There are many different ways in which the strength of our self-life manifests itself. The way it manifests itself in me may not be the way it manifests itself in you.
By nature, Jacob was not a prince with God. Nor was he one who blessed others. Nor was he a worshipper.
It is an interesting thing that the very last picture we have of Jacob in the Bible is found in Hebrews 11:21:
By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
Finally, he blessed and worshipped. This man became a prince with God, became a person able to impart blessing, and a worshipper.
But by nature, Jacob was not a prince with God. He was not someone who could impart a blessing. He was not someone who was a worshipper. In fact, far from being a prince with God, he was a bargainer with God. Everything he did was a bargain.
Every time the Lord appeared to him, he said, “All right, Lord, all right. If You bring me back safely here, I will build You a house. How about that?” He could not help it. I have no doubt that the Lord smiled. He knew what He was going to do with Jacob, but He knew the incurable strength of his self-life.
At least there was one good thing about Jacob: he did not try to hide it.
Many Christians spend their whole time suppressing their self-life. I do not know what you call it over here. I always think it is more like an air cushion: you push down one end and it comes up the other.
I was down in Florida a while ago, and I heard a lady describing it. She said, “The self-life is just like baptising a cat.” I thought that was the most amusing thing. I was a Southern Baptist, so I asked afterwards, “Do Southern Baptists baptise cats?”
She said, “No, but there was a time when we saw someone trying to baptise a cat. It was a little boy, the son of a pastor. He had got this poor black cat and was putting him under the water. But every time he put him under, the tail came up. Then he put the tail down and the head came up. Then he put the head down and the tail came up.”
That is just like the self-life. Trying to get rid of the self-life, we try to get it into the water: down, and up comes the tail; down the tail, and up comes the head; down the head, and up comes something else. It is a very wearisome job.
At least Jacob was himself. He was a bargainer, even with God. Each time the Lord came to him, he said, “Now, Lord, You do so-and-so and so-and-so, and I will do so-and-so and so-and-so.”
He certainly could not impart the blessing. He stole it. He never imparted blessing to people; he stole it from them. There are many a Christian like that. Oh, do we not all know them in our companies? People who all the time are stealing the blessings. They come in with their self-life, and the rest of us are weakened.
He was not a worshipper. He was a swindler.
Jacob, Yaakov in Hebrew, probably comes from the Hebrew word for heel. It is a play on words. He held on to his brother’s heel. He was a supplanter—a twister is the best way to put it. He came out with his arm twisted round his twin brother’s leg.
I do not know whether you have found the Jacob in you yet. But even if you were the sweetest person in this world, there is a Jacob in you. Somewhere deep down under all that spiritual cosmetics, that spiritual facelift, all that Christian polish, there is an ugly self-life.
The problem with Jacob was not his desire for the Lord, for the one thing we can say about Jacob was that he desired the Lord. That is why he stole the birthright. That is why he stole the blessing. He desired the Lord.
He was even ready to build the Lord a house. That is why he called it Bethel, the house of God, where God first appeared to him.
The trouble with Jacob was not that he did not recognise spiritual reality. He recognised spiritual realities. The problem with Jacob was his old nature.
We know quite a lot about that in the Word of God, do we not? Romans 6:6; Ephesians 4:22; Romans 7:18-19:
The things which I would, I do not: and the things which I would not, those I do.
That is Jacob.
But God persisted. We do not really know today what the name Israel really means. Many rabbis believe that it means, “God perseveres.” Certainly that was true. Jacob would never have been Israel if God had not persevered.
But God persevered, and the most wonderful thing about Jacob was that God transformed him into Israel.
We see two wonderful Scriptures which seem to me to sum up this aspect of overcoming, or kingship. Romans 12:2:
And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Or again, 2 Corinthians 3:18:
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
Before Jacob could become Israel, the Lord had to bring him to see himself. There can be no kingship and no overcoming without such a work of grace.
That is why the Lord sent Jacob for twenty years to his uncle Laban. Jacob was the biggest swindler in the Middle East, and God, to cure Jacob of swindling, sent him to the second biggest swindler in the Middle East—his uncle Laban. Those two spent twenty whole years swindling each other.
You did not know that, did you? When God wants to bring you to see yourself, what He does is put you with someone else who is a mirror. Maybe it is your wife. Maybe it is your husband. Maybe it is your children. Maybe it is your parents. Maybe it is your boss. Maybe it is some employee. Maybe it is a church.
We get so angry with people. We criticise; we are done with them; we condemn them. Until, in the end, sometimes after years, we come to see that we are only seeing ourselves in them.
Why, dear Jacob went and worked with Laban. He saw his pretty daughter Rachel and he spoke about seven years’ work if he might marry Rachel. Uncle Laban said, “My dear boy, certainly.” Jacob worked for those years, and then you know what happened. It was the wedding.
Uncle Laban swindled Jacob. When Jacob finally was married, he found he had not married Rachel, his beloved Rachel, at all, but Leah. Do you not think that was the biggest swindle in history?
Can you not hear Jacob saying to himself, “Listen, my own flesh and blood! Have you ever heard of such a heinous crime? Your own flesh and blood—my uncle—swindling his nephew over marriage! Swindling over business, swindling over other things, but over marriage? Seven years! Can you believe it?”
He was so shocked by his uncle. It never entered his head that he had swindled his twin brother and his old blind father.
That is like you, dear friend, even if you do not recognise it. The thing you so dislike in others is often a mirror of suppressed images in your own life.
We only ever come to terms with it when finally we are put with somebody else. Leah was in on the swindle too. Her father must have said to her, “Now listen, Leah, if you want to get married and not be on the shelf for the rest of your life, you just keep your big mouth shut. Do not you open your mouth once in the whole of these proceedings.”
“You stay under that veil, and you stay silent, and you walk out your sister. When it is all over, you can open your big mouth. It will be too late.” So there were two swindlers.
Oh, Jacob. Maybe some of you have never realised that the office you are in has got Jacobs and Labans and Leahs in it. Of course, it has.
The one person that Jacob always thought was not a swindler was his beloved Rachel. For him, Rachel was the purest, sweetest thing that ever graced this earth.
When, in the end, after twenty years of swindling, he came to the end of the whole thing and decided to leave and go back home, even if it meant death at the hand of his twin brother Esau, on the way, two days’ journey out, somewhere in Gilead, they saw the dust of camels coming very fast.
There was old Laban with a party of men, and he was in a furious mood. “How could you possibly leave stealthily without even saying goodbye, and pinch the family gods?”
Jacob—that was the one thing he knew he would not do. He may have stolen everything else, but he would not steal family gods. He drew himself up to his right height and said, “Now listen here. I would not touch your family gods for all the tea in China. I am not an idol worshipper.”
Laban, who knew his nephew Jacob very well, searched everybody. When he came to beloved Rachel sitting on the camel, she said, “Papa, do not search the camel. I am not feeling too well.”
So beloved father just had no idea and went on. Rachel was sitting on all the family gods. She was a swindler too.
So Jacob saw himself first in Laban, then in Leah, then in Rachel. At the end of it, he was ready for Jabbok. When the angel of the Lord appeared, he was a desperate man because he had seen the strength of his own life, of his own self-life.
He took hold of the Lord and would not let Him go. Dear child of God, do you believe in a second experience? I do not say that there is always a second experience, but I believe there very often is. Do not ever strain nor strive; it comes by God’s appointment.
But listen to me: even if it remains for years ahead, when that moment comes, do not let the Lord go.
Jacob called the place Peniel—the face of God—for he said, “I have seen the face of God.” In that wrestling, God said to Jacob, “What is thy name?”
Jacob could have said, “I am Abraham’s grandson.” That would have got him into favour. Or he could have said, “I am Isaac’s son.” But he did not. He said, “My name is Jacob—twister.”
The Lord said to him, “Thou shalt no more be called Twister, but Israel; for thou hast striven with God and with men.”
Then there came a transformation of character that meant that Jacob became a worshipper, and one who could impart a blessing.
Can you impart a blessing? Christians should be able to bless one another in the name of the Lord. I do not mean just in words. There should be the ability to bless. You can leave something with others that they never had before.
Who would ever have thought that he would have been a worshipper, and someone who could impart a blessing?
There can be no overcoming without our self-life being dealt with. It can be a long job. But overcomers are worshippers and those who can impart a blessing.
Then lastly, there is Joseph. I will spend just a few moments with Joseph, for Joseph is really the picture of the overcomer. Technically, when his brothers fail, he becomes the means of their preservation.
In Psalm 105, we read those wonderful words—that commentary on the life of Joseph. Psalm 105:16-22:
And He called for a famine upon the land; He brake the whole staff of bread.
He sent a man before them; Joseph was sold for a servant:
His feet they hurt with fetters: He was laid in chains of iron:
Until the time that His word came to pass, the word of the Lord tried him.
The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance;
To bind his princes at his pleasure, and teach his elders wisdom.
God sent this one man before all the others who were going to fail, in order that he might save the others who were going to fail.
Jacob, when he was dying, blessed Joseph and said, “He is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a fountain, whose branches run over the wall.” Not only is there fruit for Israel, but there is fruit for the nations.
What does Joseph teach us? That there can be no coming to the throne without suffering.
It is not enough to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It is not enough to have the strength of our self-life broken. There has to be another kind of suffering: discipline.
Even if we were perfect, even if we had never swindled or cheated or stolen, very early on in Joseph’s life God revealed to him His purpose for him, and he saw a vision. He saw all the sheaves, each one representing one of his brothers, and his mother and father, and he saw them all bowing down to his.
Then he saw the stars and the sun and the moon bowing down to himself as one of the stars. It is interesting that the thing he passed on as a boy was that they all bowed down to him.
He saw something. It was not untrue. We have no record of Joseph’s swindling, no record of Joseph cheating, no record of Joseph lying. Maybe he was different.
But before God could bring him to the throne, He had to make him poor in spirit.
If I were to give three Scriptures that summed up Joseph’s life, they would be these. Matthew 5:3:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
To begin with, Joseph was very full in spirit. It took years in prison, years of being rejected, years of being sold, before he came to the place where he was poor in spirit. Then the kingdom was given. The moment he became poor in spirit, the kingdom was his.
Or again, I think of Ephesians 2:6:
And raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.
Or again, 2 Timothy 2:12:
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.
There is no other way to the throne than this one of suffering and discipline.
I said yesterday, God does not want a faceless bureaucracy to run heaven, to run eternity, the ages to come. He wants people who have, in deep, deep suffering, come to an experience of the Lord, and in them a compassion.
Have you ever found that the way a person deals with you who has not suffered is quite different from the way a person deals with you who has suffered?
If you have a headache, a bad headache, and someone tries to do something for you who has never had a headache, he is not quite the same as a person who suffers from headaches. There is a compassion. That is a very simple way of putting it, but it is compassion.
We can only comfort others with the comfort wherewith we ourselves have been comforted. That is a lesson of Joseph.
It says in Philippians 3:10:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.
The fellowship of His sufferings. What an extraordinary word that was: “His soul entered into iron.” Or again: “Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tried him.”
Such is the way of discipline. But there is no other way to the throne, no other way to overcome, than this way.
Four lives, and each one an essential characteristic in this matter of kingship.
It is very interesting, by the way, that today the rabbis believe that Jacob’s hip was dislocated. If that is really true, it would mean that he must have felt it all his life.
How do you come to be above only? Only by going down. How do you get exalted? By humbling yourself. How do you know a harvest? By falling into the ground and dying.
The way up is the way down. If you want to be the head, you must allow God to empty you. If you want to be above only, you must learn what it is to lose your own life for His sake and the gospel’s.
If you let go, you find your life unto life eternal. If you hold on, you lose your place in the government of God.
Shall we pray?
O Lord, Thou knowest we have covered quite a lot of ground this morning, and only Thou, Lord, canst take hold of what has been said and keep it alive in our hearts. Blot out, Lord, anything that was not of Thyself.
But, Lord, watch over everything that was of Thyself, that it may find a dwelling place in us all richly, in all wisdom and knowledge. Father, Thou knowest how each one of us needs these lessons to be applied.
Apply them, Lord, by Thy Spirit. We ask it all in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.