We read together in the book of Genesis, Genesis 28.
I am going to read from Genesis 28:10.
And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran.
And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.
And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
And behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.
And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of the city was Luz at the first.
And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,
So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God:
And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee.
Then, in the same book, Genesis 35, verse 1, and then verses 9 to 15.
And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, Who appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.
And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came from Padan-aram, and blessed him.
And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall thy name be: and He called his name Israel.
And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.
And God went up from him in the place where He spake with him.
And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He spake with him, a pillar of stone: and he poured out a drink offering thereon, and poured oil thereon.
And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Bethel.
Shall we just bow together in a word of prayer?
Father, we just want to thank Thee, as we bow here this morning, that Thou hast made such glorious and powerful provision for us all. We are not here, Lord, under our own steam, to rely upon our own energies and talents; but, Lord, we know that Thou hast given us an anointing in the Lord Jesus.
We know that that anointing is made available to us in reality and in practice by, and in, the Person of the Holy Spirit. Together we appropriate, by faith, that anointing this morning, for speaker and for hearer.
We do not want this time to be just, Lord, ourselves hearing or myself speaking. We want it to be divine power and divine ability, so that we meet with Thee, and the Word of Christ dwells in us richly as a result. Lord, may it be so, we pray. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, this morning, I would like to take these studies in the life of Jacob a stage further. The first time I spoke about this matter, I spoke about the love of God and Jacob. As I expected, there were quite a lot of problems in some folks’ minds, especially over the phrase I did not speak upon: “Esau have I hated.”
People have said to me, “You are going to give a whole time on this matter.” But I really cannot, if we are going to cover the whole ground. I must tell you something: I do not understand it myself. So I can only take hold of the positive thing, and I am not going to have an argument with God. That is God’s business.
All I know is that He set His love upon us who are born of the Spirit of God. To go into all the ins and outs, the whys and the wherefores, and so on, I think it ends up in a kind of sophistry, a kind of mental rationalisation, which is not always as helpful as it ought to be. In fact, it can be death-producing.
What I do know is this, and I thank God for it: whatever else happens to Esau—and I know the Judge of all the earth will do right—God gave some amazing promises to Esau, which He fulfilled. There are many of the sons of Esau who are today in the kingdom and in the family of God.
Never forget that, with all the privileges, our children of God. The fact still remains that God said of Jacob, “Jacob have I loved.” It is this enduring love, this jealous love of God, that is the factor in the life of Jacob.
Now, what I want to speak about this morning is the purpose of God in Jacob. What was the purpose of God behind the election of Jacob? We know that God loved him, and there is no other reason for that love than that He loved him. But what was the goal of God’s election? What did He have in mind for Jacob?
Since this name of Jacob and Israel has been given to the whole redeemed people of God—to you and to me forever—what can we learn from the purpose of God for Jacob?
It seems to me that God’s purpose for Jacob is fivefold, at least as I see it, and it is contained in those passages that we have read together in Genesis 28 and Genesis 35. This morning, by the grace of God, we will deal with four of these aspects, and the next time I speak, we will take the fifth.
Here are the five:
So here is the fivefold purpose for Jacob. Now let us go straight into that, without any further ado.
Let us consider the first of these matters: a land to be possessed.
Genesis 28:13:
And behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.
Genesis 35:12:
And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.
This was divinely given and divinely promised land. There is no other record in the whole Bible of land being apportioned, especially with a covenant attached to it. God speaks of bringing certain people up from Caphtor—I think that is either Cyprus or Greece; we are not quite sure of it. He also says that He led the children of Edom, that is, the children of Esau, into the land of Edom.
But we have no record of a promise being given of particular land to a specific family, other than that promise of land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed after them.
It is interesting when we turn to Psalm 105:6. The psalmist takes this matter up, and this is how he puts it, Psalm 105:6-11:
O ye seed of Abraham His servant,
Ye children of Jacob, His chosen ones.
He is the Lord our God:
His judgments are in all the earth.
He hath remembered His covenant for ever,
The word which He commanded to a thousand generations,
The covenant which He made with Abraham,
And His oath unto Isaac;
And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a statute,
To Israel for an everlasting covenant:
Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan,
The lot of your inheritance:
When they were but a few men in number;
Yea, very few, and sojourners in it.
A thousand generations, by the way, goes right on far beyond our present time from the time of Abraham. Is that not amazing? If you work it out—forty years to a thousand generations—work it out yourself. I am no mathematician, but I reckon I am right on it.
Now, is that not marvellous? This was land that God covenanted to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their seed after them. It was the purpose of God that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, though they never actually possessed the land, should in fact dwell within it, and should in the end become inheritors of it.
Now, what does all this mean? Well, a few more facts before we can come to the application to ourselves.
First of all, every single thing within the purpose of God was centred in that land. Everything they needed for national life was in that land.
The book of Deuteronomy tells us, oh, what a land it was. It would not be like Egypt, which had to be irrigated by foot and by wheel; it would be watered from the heavens above, and by streams that would flow down from the mountains.
He said that there were eight species. I will not go through them all, but I think most of you know them: fig, pomegranate, date, olive, wheat, barley, and so on. All these things were there. He said there was iron in those hills. Everything they needed was there in that land for their self-sufficiency, for their national life.
The second thing was this: within that land would come the kingdom. David, the man after God’s own heart, would finally come to rule in that land—no other land. In that land, the kingdom would be centred, and the throne which represented the will of God.
Thirdly, it was there in that land that the city of God would be built. In other words, Jerusalem would be taken—the place of which God had said:
Thou shalt not offer thy sacrifices or offerings in any place which thou choosest, but in the place which I choose to cause My name to dwell therein.
That city and that temple were within the confines of this promised land. It had boundaries. Outside of that land, there was no divine provision. There could be provision made, as when they went down into Egypt or went elsewhere; but, I mean, basically, all God’s provision was within those boundaries, and outside there was no provision.
There is a fourth thing. In that land, and that land alone, the Messiah would be born. One of the prophets was to say later:
But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Which art little among the thousands of Judah,
Out of thee shall One come forth unto Me
That is to be ruler in Israel;
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.
Many other such Scriptures speak, for instance, of our Lord, the Messiah, being in Galilee of the nations, by the way of the sea. Now, the way of the sea is a motor route, a trade way, that went all the way from Egypt right through this promised land to Damascus.
It is an interesting thing that when Jesus was brought up, for almost thirty years of His life He spent them just a mile north of the Via Maris, the way of the sea. The three years of His public ministry were centred in a place called Capernaum, which is literally half a mile south of the way of the sea.
These Scriptures could not be fulfilled, even though they were uttered later, unless the people were to possess this land. At that time there was no people. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had not gone and dwelt in that land by faith, their seed would never have taken it.
So it was all-important that Jacob should understand from the very beginning that his whole life and destiny was caught up, wrapped up, involved, and centred in that promised land.
Now, we often run down dear Jacob. People talk about Abraham as if he was a saint of saints. I want to be careful, but I mean, they speak of Abraham as if he was a saint of saints—and he is. Isaac also they speak of as a saint among saints.
But it is an interesting thing: some of this deceit, some of this twistedness, did not come from Rebekah. Now, ladies, cheer up. So many preachers tell us that the whole thing came from Rebekah and Laban—that side of the family were a twisted lot. But that side of the family were also from Abraham’s father.
Abraham had a little bit of this twistedness in him. Do you remember, he went down into Egypt, not because God appeared to him in a dream and said, “Abraham, go down into Egypt, for I am with thee”? He went down through unbelief. When he got down into Egypt, do you remember what he said? His wife was his half-sister, so he called her, “My sister,” and got into fearful trouble.
So, although people tell me that Abraham is such a saint of saints, there is a little bit of whatever you call it in him as well. Later on, dear Isaac, whom everybody seems to think was such a saint, did the same thing. He did not go down into Egypt—he never did have that originality or initiative, even in sin—but Isaac went to Gerar, and he said, “My wife Rebekah is my sister.” He did the same thing.
Before you run down Jacob, just remember this: when the sons came up and said, “Pharaoh says, ‘Come down to Egypt,’” Jacob was the one of the three fathers who said, “Never.” God had to appear to him in a dream and say, “Go down.”
It is an interesting thing that dear Jacob, with all his twistedness, never passed off Leah as his sister. No, I am only seeking to put the record straight. That is all. After all, they are our family.
Jacob may have had a lot of problems with the strength of his own nature, with his self-will, with his zeal to get things done. But there was one thing about Jacob that shone: he had a regard for the things of God.
Deeper than his twistedness, deeper than his deceit, deeper than his business acumen and shrewdness, was this desire for the things of God. That is why he wanted the birthright: he valued it. That is why he stole the blessing: he saw the value of it.
That is why he understood God’s promise about the land, and why, when famine had come to the whole area and there was plenty of food in Egypt, he was not prepared to go down there. He would have preferred to have stayed in the land in a time of famine, somehow believing that God would meet them, as if it had been the will of God.
God could have done it. After all, years later God kept Elijah alive in a time of famine in that land by feeding him through the ravens and by a little brook that did not dry up.
This land, therefore, was intimately involved with the purpose of God in Jacob’s life and his destiny. Now, what can we learn from all of this for us? Oh, some tremendous lessons, I think.
First of all, God has given us a land, a promised land. Within that land He gives us everything, and out of that land He promises nothing. Within that land, every single thing necessary for you to live the Christian life is provided.
Every single thing to turn you from a sinner to a saint is provided. Every single thing you need for transformation of your character, so that finally you will be conformed to the image of God’s Son, is provided within the boundaries of that land.
All that you need for service is provided within the boundaries of that land: the power, the gifts, the equipment, the anointing. All is within that land, not outside of it; all within it. Go down to Egypt and you will end in a mess. But within that land, God has promised you and provided you with everything.
Within that land, the kingdom is found. The throne of God is found. The authority of God is exercised. The authority and rule of God are experienced personally, directly, intimately—almost face to face.
Within that land, defined so clearly by God, you will find the city of God. That is where He is building the eternal city, the new Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb.
In the end, the coming of the Messiah is linked with that land. In other words, as we grow to maturity, we bring near and hasten the coming of the day of God. This does not mean every believer, but it does mean that there must be those, out of the thousands and thousands named with the name of the Lord, who will go right on, at any cost, to the end.
Now, what is this land? This land is Christ. This land is Christ.
People will immediately say, “Oh, but just wait. Are we going to have wars in this land?” Yes, plenty—not in eternity, I hope, but down here we are going to have plenty.
You are not going to possess this land, with all its fullness and all the provision of God, without the powers of darkness contending with us, contending with you, fighting every step of the way, seeking to trip you up all along.
Do you not think there is going to be a battle? Do you not think that we have to remember the Scripture?
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
No, this land is just tremendous, really. Everything is found within it.
Let me give you a few Scriptures, at the risk of boring you. I said to Kenny, that is the only good thing about putting the light full on: I cannot see you in your sleep.
In Colossians 2:9-10, listen to these wonderful words:
For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,
And in Him ye are made full.
Did you hear that? Look again, Colossians 1:19:
For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell.
Then Colossians 2:9:
For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Now comes the marvellous statement: “In Him ye are made complete.” Not under Him—that is true. Not with Him—that is true. Not of Him—that is true. But in Him.
So if you come to dwell in this land and refuse to be pushed out of it, refuse any temptation that will draw you out of this promised, covenanted land, you will know what it is to be complete in the end, if you will possess your possessions.
If you will really, by the Spirit of God, discover what is yours in that land, you will find that at times the land will not apparently have all that is there. Much of it is hidden in the earth. Much of it comes in the rain.
If you are in the dry months in that land, you might wonder where all these eight species are—wheat and barley and all the rest of it. But, my word, when the rains come, something happens. All the deep wells get filled up, water flows everywhere, and the whole land is a riot of flower and greenery. Out of that water comes all the fruitfulness.
What I am trying to say is simply this: God has given us a boundary. Outside of Christ, no fullness; inside of Christ, all fullness. Got it?
You rush off to Babylon, you will not get the fullness. It is not that you are not saved; you just will not know the fullness—not in practice, in reality. It will not be an ongoing thing. It will be something you have to rush to a conference every now and again to get blessed, carry you through a month, and then you will be finished again until next year.
People are all the time doing this. It is not a well of water springing up in them unto life eternal; it is tap water, which they turn on for a while and drink. Then they have to come back to the tap, instead of carrying the water supply inside.
You cannot do that unless you know how to dwell in the land. I will tell you something: the enemy will do every single thing to make everything apparently, to your eyes, arid, barren, impossible, so that you will say, “I will go to Egypt. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
“I will go down to Egypt because there is plenty there,” or, “I will go to Babylon; there is plenty there,” or, “I will go somewhere else, for there is plenty there.” When you go there, you will have a certain amount of blessing, but, oh, there comes compromise.
Once having started out of the way of God, you have to bolster things. Then you start on the way of unbelief, which leads to compromise and bondage. Stay within the land, and you will know God’s covenanted provision.
What a wonderful thing it is to know this is covenanted. I think of a wonderful word in Hebrews 13:20-21:
Now the God of peace, Who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus,
Make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ.
Is that not a marvellous word? The blood of an eternal covenant. God has not just promised this land for time. This is an eternal covenant. You are in Christ, and Christ is in you—forever. Praise God.
There are many other Scriptures. I think of Ephesians 1:3:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Where do we find all these blessings? In Christ. We do not find them outside of Christ; we find them in Christ. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. There is a land full of blessings.
You do not get them all at once. You would die if you did; you could not contain it. The blessings of God are a reality, not an ideal. God knows just how much you can take at any one moment. But how tremendous it is that all these blessings are ours in the Lord Jesus.
I think of another Scripture that puts it very simply, Philippians 4:19:
And my God shall supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Every need of yours, supplied according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus, that God might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy afore prepared unto glory. My God shall supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory.
Oh, are you a vessel of mercy? Riches of glory—He wants to make them known to you. How can that be unless you dwell in the land, unless you realise the purpose of God for you is intimately, directly bound up with the Lord Jesus, with Christ, and your being in Him and He being in you?
This is not a matter of our striving, our zeal, our energy. It is through the blood of an eternal covenant. God, in His grace, has not only loved us; He has given us an eternal covenant and sealed it with the blood of His own Son.
That covenant is this: He covenants to give you all the fullness of Himself in Christ. Oh, you say, “It is impossible. I think you have gone a bit too far.” No, no, no. It is what it says in Ephesians 3.
Ephesians 3:18-19 says:
That ye may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.
God’s covenant is that He gives you all His fullness in His Son—not as an ideal, not as something before the donkey’s nose, but as an ongoing, progressive experience of Him, individually and corporately.
This has to be possessed by faith. It is perfectly true: God said to the descendants of Jacob later, to Moses, to Joshua, “I will send the angel of My presence before you, and I will drive out the Hivite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, and all the other -ites. They will all be driven out.”
We could say, “Oh, wonderful, wonderful. We can all be believers in the predestinating power of God. The angel of the Lord is going to go before us. He is going to do it all. The Passover Lamb is the basis of it.”
Once the Passover Lamb has been sacrificed, that is the basis for deliverance, for redemption, for our being a nation, for our coming to national life and national institution, to the kingdom. Praise the Lord. Is that not wonderful?
We shall be carried along on beds of ease, flowing along. The whole land will fall before us. We shall just look in, and we will not even have to do anything. We will just look up, and the walls will fall down, and the people will flee. When they are all gone, we shall tiptoe.
But this is the kind of teaching that seems to be so prevalent amongst the people of God about the things of God. They say, “You have got everything in Christ.” Of course, it is absolutely true: you have got everything in Christ.
They say it is all given to us through the finished work of the Lamb. That is absolutely true; there is no argument about it. They say that it is the angel of the Lord’s presence, the Spirit of God, who will lead us, as it were, into all this. That is absolutely true. They say, “It is all ours.” That is absolutely true.
But unless you use the soles of your feet and the sword in your hand, you will never possess.
Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread, that will I give you. I have been told I must not hammer this thing. It is terribly hard to remember all these instructions that are given to preachers.
I do hope you are getting my emphatic burden on this matter. You have got to use the soles of your feet. It says so in Joshua 1:3.
The angel of the Lord may go in before you, but He is going to do nothing until you possess by faith, until you put your feet down on Jericho and say, “Lord, this Jericho is Yours because of the Lamb, because of the finished work of the Lamb.”
The walls will never fall flat—and do not expect them to fall flat—the moment you appear. You put your feet down and say, “Lord, this Jericho is ours.” When the walls do not fall down, oh, six days you have got to go round once a day, and on the seventh day seven times.
I can hear some people saying, “What unbelief! Seven times round? Surely it is dependent upon the Lamb of God and His finished work.” No, it is dependent upon the Lamb and His finished work, but you must obey the instructions of God as to how to use the soles of your feet.
Sometimes the soles of your feet will only go through the water once, and the waters will part, and all the people will go over into the land. Other times you must go round those walls a week, and on the seventh day seven times—and no talking.
I have seen more prayer times destroyed by talk than anything else. They all get talking beforehand, and gradually the problems become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
It was great wisdom, divine psychology, that said, “No talking. No noise until the last time round, on the last day.” Then you will blow the trumpet and shout a great shout. As soon as they did it, the walls fell down.
So it was with the whole land. The only way they ever got Jerusalem, four hundred years later, was when David, through faith, sent his men up the shaft of the spring Gihon. When they put their feet down upon Jerusalem, it fell.
They could have done it earlier, but they were afraid. They were afraid in some places of iron chariots. They were afraid about places because they seemed so impregnable, so invincible. But all they had to do was use the soles of their feet.
The finished work of the Lamb means that there is no problem that cannot be solved, no difficulty that cannot be overcome, and no advance that cannot be made. The finished work of the Lamb has obtained it all. The land is ours by promise.
It is not as if God says, “Well, maybe I will give some,” and then they have this kind of heavenly committee that sits in session every now and again and says, “Shall we? Shall we not?” The whole land is covenanted. You may have as much of the Lord Jesus as you can take.
Remember, I mean that. That is not just being right. You and I sometimes can take very little, and what we take bowls us over. We come into an ecstasy of joy and peace and revelation such as we have never known, and yet really the Lord says, “Phew—terribly little.”
Then He has to work and work and work till there is greater capacity, and then we need more of the Lord. We have to go through more experience, possess more, and we come into more of the Lord.
Time goes, and we are only on that first point: a land to be possessed. I do hope you are using the soles of your feet.
Of course, they had to use the soles of their feet literally, and the sword in their hand. You have the Word of God. It is through faith and patience that you inherit the promises.
You must take the Word of God, as the Holy Spirit enlightens you and gives it to you, personally or corporately, and possess it. This is the purpose of God for Jacob the twister—Jacob, the man with such strengths of natural character; Jacob, the man who was a trial to the work of God; Jacob, the one who undid the work of God naturally through his own zeal, his own fleshly ways and energy.
Yet this Jacob—the purpose of God for him was that he should dwell in this land, and he dwelt in this land in tents. Thank God. May you be given such grace.
Remember what it says in Hebrews 4:1-3:
Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.
For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard.
That rest is the land, where all is provided, and not the wilderness. We can hear these things and say, “It does not work. It does not work.” Or we can say, “It works for some so-and-so, but I am special. I have special problems, special difficulties. If you knew my background, you would understand that I am an exception.”
“I thank God that it works for everybody else. But me—it never works for me.” There are many Christians, you know. I wonder how many, if we were honest, in this company this morning. There are many Christians who do not believe that God would ever speak to them.
They believe that He would speak to Brother Kong; that He would speak to me; that He would speak to some of the others. They are God’s specials. In fact, deep down within our hearts, we have an idea that they are mystics. They are the kind of people who hear God.
There are men who say, “I am a very practical man. I have never heard God’s voice, and I never will.” I mean it: it goes to the basis of half our problems. Thousands and thousands of believers do not think God will ever speak to them.
Some doctors will tell you this: if you are young and you do not want to hear something, or you just believe you cannot hear something, you will not hear. You become deaf. Many Christians have become deaf through unbelief.
They just do not believe that Father would ever say a word personally to them, that He would ever actually speak to them into their problems, into their circumstances. Oh, you are loved of God. “Jacob have I loved.” He longs to speak to you.
Here was a man who had stolen his twin brother’s birthright and deceived his godly old father when he was blind. It was a dastardly thing to do, taking away the blessing from his twin brother, and he was fleeing.
We do not have any account of his being repentant. I am sure he was sorry for himself. He loved home; it says he was a home-lover. He loved his mother. But we have no sorrow in the record, no inference that he wept before God, “Oh God, I have sinned, I have sinned, I have sinned.” He was only sorry for himself.
When he put his head down on a stone for a pillow, God appeared to him. If God can appear to a man in a condition like that, with a character like that, do you not think He could appear to you, if you are born of God?
May the word of hearing be united with faith, so that though you know that you are nothing in yourself but a twister, and you know your own bad qualities as well as your good qualities, you know the strengths of your will and all the rest of it, but you know that God will speak to you.
Then I want just to say something also about a people to be produced. He was to become a people. Here is another matter to do with the purpose of God.
We have it again in Genesis 28:14:
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Or again, Genesis 35:11:
And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.
What was the purpose of God for Jacob? That this man should become a people, should become a nation, that he should be fruitful and multiply.
It reminds me of a wonderful little Scripture that in Jacob’s case came absolutely true, Isaiah 60:22:
The little one shall become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation: I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time.
Dear people of God, the purpose of God for you and me is that we should be fruitful—fruitful. God’s purpose is that there should not only be the fruit of the Spirit in our lives—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, and so on—but that the seed that is in that fruit of the Spirit should reproduce.
How sad it is when we have never, ever, at any time in our Christian life, been responsible for another single human being finding God.
It does not matter where you turn in the Book. The Word of God is this: “Be fruitful and multiply.”
Jesus put it very beautifully in John 15:16:
Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you.
Is it not an interesting thing, when we turn to the Book? Genesis 1:28—almost the very first words God ever said to man were, “Be fruitful and multiply.” As soon as the flood was over and the whole human race destroyed except for eight people, God said to Noah and to them, “Be fruitful, and multiply.”
When God took hold of Abraham in Genesis 12, God said to him that his seed should be as the dust of the earth for multitude, and as the stars of heaven innumerable. In his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed.
It is everywhere in the Book. You cannot find any part of the Book where God is not concerned about fruitfulness and multiplication.
When you come to the New Testament, we read in Acts 6:7:
And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly.
The Word of God increased; the number of the disciples multiplied. It went hand in hand. It seems a very strange thing to me when people pour scorn upon any evangelistic concern, burden, or outreach, as if somehow or other any concern that other men and women should find the Lord is not over-spiritual. It belongs to the kindergarten stage.
My friend, it does not belong to the kindergarten stage. It belongs to the heart of the purpose of God. If you and I have not got the burden that is in the Master’s heart, what hope is there?
People say to me, “Ah, but you see, I see the church.” Of course. Thank God if you see the church. But do you make a dichotomy between the church and bringing people to Christ?
As if, having seen the church, you must leave all evangelism far behind as something superficial, shallow, belonging to the kindergarten realm of Christian things. How, may I ask, is the house of God to be built? Where do the living stones come from?
“Oh,” says someone, “well, they are all there, you see, in other denominations.” Well, all right then. But I think it would be just as marvellous if God did such a work in our hearts that from amongst us we not only were fruitful, but multiplied, and thousands upon thousands began to find the Lord.
Now I will tell you something: you can have no birth without conception, and no conception without travail. In other words, first of all, if you and I are not open to the Holy Spirit to conceive something in us which becomes a painful anguish in our spirit for those who do not know the Lord, we will never see people born of God.
There seems to be an idea—and I am a Calvinist. I know I should not name myself with any name, but I am a Calvinist of a pink order.
But I do not believe in that kind of Calvinism which says, “We will not have any outreach, any burden. We will sit there and do what is right with God and worship Him and praise Him, and everybody will get saved.” It just does not happen.
No, I am not asking for those kinds of gospel meetings where anyone who comes in is buttonholed on the instant, put into the pillory, and somehow every kind of gospel verse is shot at them in the hope that something or other will stick. We do not want that kind of evangelism.
What we want is the kind of heart concern for men and women that will mean that you bake a cake for them, visit them when they are ill, mow their lawn, do some job for them, love them in such a way that in the end they see in you the fruit of God, and in the fruit seed which is reproduced.
That is what we want. Look at Acts 12:24:
But the word of God grew and multiplied.
How can the Word of God grow? Only in you. And multiply? It starts in others. So if the Word of God is growing in you, may it also multiply. But the tragedy so often is that the Word of God grows in our head, and there is no multiplication. We stagnate.
Be fruitful and multiply.
Listen again, keeping closely to this whole matter. In Isaiah 43 we have read these words earlier on another occasion:
But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.
Fear not; for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;
I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the end of the earth;
Every one that is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed; yea, whom I have made.
What wonderful words. It begins with a Jacob, moves into an Israel, goes to child and anguish, and ends in the seed coming from the four corners of the earth.
Oh, dear people of God, do not shelve this matter. It lies at the heart of God’s purpose for Jacob, for Israel. It is that you and I, though we are but one, should become a thousand.
If God says one can become a thousand, are you one? Well, you could become a thousand. How, you say? The Lord will hasten it in His time. Are you ready for the travail? Are you ready for the anguish? Are you ready to lay down your life for Him, for the church, and for the world?
A small one will become a strong nation. Are we a small people? God says we can become a strong nation. Oh, that God might be able to do such a work in us all.
Now, time is nearly gone. The lovely thing about Jacob is this—may I just say this for the comfort of all of you? God began to multiply Jacob before he became Israel.
In fact, he had all but one of his twelve sons, and he had his one daughter, when he became Israel. I love this. God knows just what He is going to do in your life, and it is a strange thing how He uses some of us.
We are nothing in ourselves, and there are an awful lot of weaknesses which any Christian could see and identify. But God can use the weakest people to multiply, because He knows what He is going to do in that life. So take encouragement.
There is a third thing I would just mention as we close. These two other things—the last matter I am not going to say too much about, because we are going to take it up separately on another occasion.
But there are two other matters in this fivefold purpose of God: that he should be a blessing to others, and that he should have power with God and with men.
Jacob was a naturally strong-willed, strong-souled man. As I have already said, he was not this effeminate, spineless creature that some people hold him up to be simply because he loved home. Because a man loves home does not mean that he is a weak-kneed, spineless sponge. He can be quite a tough man.
In fact, I will tell you something: Jacob was an infinitely tougher man mentally than Esau. Infinitely tougher. That hard, tough nature came out when he said, “Sell me today thy birthright.” He did not give him the pottage straight away.
So much for this weak-kneed, spineless sponge type that is all sentimental: “Poor Esau, he is hungry; I will give him the pottage.” He said, “You are not going to get one single ladle of it, even if you die here at my feet, till you sign on the dotted line.”
He was a tough character, Jacob, inside. He had a strength of soul, a strength of will. It was his natural energy, his natural resources.
He was not a blessing to others. In fact, he stole their blessing. He did not bless his twin brother; he stole it from him. He did not bless dear father; he deceived him. He did not even bless Rebekah, who was half the problem. She never saw him again. I am sure she never called it a blessing.
He was always stealing blessing. Even Laban did not feel that Jacob was a blessing. At one point he said, “God seems to have prospered us since you have been with us.” But the interesting thing is that the flocks all ended up on your side of the fence.
Jacob stole the blessing. He did not give blessing. He was a blessing to nobody, really. Jacob was not a giver; he was an acquirer.
You may smile, but most of us Christians come in this category. The whole of our life is centred on one theme: “Give me. I want. Bless me. Me.”
“You mean I have got to give my life for this lot? No. Oh, I am here for the blessing. I have what I can get.” We are acquirers, not givers.
We are always acquiring. We will go from company to company to acquire. We will go from book to book to acquire. We will go from speaker to speaker to acquire. We will go from conference to conference to acquire. We are acquisitive—always gathering, not giving.
It is interesting that God did such a work in this man Jacob, whom He loved so much, that at the end of his life he gave and gave and gave and gave. This man became a blessing.
He blessed Pharaoh. What a wonderful story it is when Jacob, the aged Jacob, goes into the presence of Pharaoh and blesses Pharaoh, the supreme potentate of antiquity.
There was this child of God lifting up his hands and blessing Pharaoh. I believe it must have been a real blessing. Something was probably added to Pharaoh that he never had before because of the blessing. It was not just words; it was a real blessing. When Jacob lifted up his hands and blessed, God stood by it.
So it is also with the two sons of Joseph. He blessed them. In fact, the last words we ever have about Jacob in Hebrews 11:21 say:
By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
That is the last picture we get of this man. In actual fact, in the record in Genesis, he blessed all his sons. What an incredible chapter Genesis 49 is.
Now, we sometimes think of blessing as being nice—saying nice things. “If I am going to bless you, it is all nice, all sugary, lovely.” But when you read what Jacob said about Reuben, what he said about Simeon, what he said about some of the others—my word, this was a blessing.
Here was an unveiling of them, as if he saw with the eye of God into their very heart, into their character. As if, because he knew himself, he understood them. This blessing was just being truth to the others.
What a wonderful word it was when it came to Judah, and when it came to Joseph. What promises.
Well, dear ones, the purpose of God was that he should possess a land, should become a people, should be a blessing. Are you a blessing? Are you really a blessing? Do you convey something of God to others? Do you deposit something of God in your brothers and sisters?
You cannot be a blessing till God does something inside of us.
This fourth thing was that he became a prince with God and with men. Now, I am not going to say more about that because, in one of the last times I speak, I shall speak about Jacob as Israel, as the prince with God and with men.
But many of us are under our circumstances, are we not? The kitchen sink is on top of us. The nursery is on top of us. The family is on top of us. The job is on top of us. Our friends are on top of us.
Our circumstances and situations—we are ruled by them. As soon as problems begin, we become nervous, frightened. We are not on top; we are underneath. We do not have power with God and with men. Circumstances have power with us. Situations have power with us. Men have power with us and over us.
What a deep way Jacob had to go before he was no longer the tail but the head—not because he grabbed it, but because God gave it.
Dear people of God, do you not want to reign with Christ? Do you not want to sit with Him in heavenly places? But you cannot sit with Christ practically and realistically in heavenly places unless you are prepared to die with Him, unless you are prepared to be buried with Him, and then raised with Him.
Unless you are prepared to go the same way the Master went, your position is in the heavenly places in Christ, seated with Him, but not practically or realistically. In fact, it is almost a mockery to you.
You are under your circumstances, under your situations, at the mercy of the world and of the atmospheres that the world creates, at the fingertips of Satan and the powers of darkness. He pulls the strings, and you move, and you cannot help it.
Jacob could not help it. He wanted to be different, but he could not help it. It was only when God severed the string and dislocated his hip that he came to be under the government of God. Then he had power with God and with men.
So we pray.
Oh, Lord, Thou knowest all our hearts. Apply this Thy Word to us all, Lord. There is land to be possessed. There is a purpose of Thine to be realised and fulfilled individually and corporately.
There is a need of fruitfulness and multiplication, Lord. There is a need that we become a realistic and practical blessing to one another, to the world.
Oh, Lord, there is a need that we should be those who are above and not beneath, at the head and not the tail. Lord, apply Thy Word to us, we pray.
May there begin to dawn upon us something of Thy purpose for us as those who have been surnamed with the name of Jacob, and who have become Thy Israel. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.