I should like to read in a number of places in the Bible this morning. First of all, in Genesis 35, from verse 9.
And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-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 be thy name: 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 he poured oil thereon.
And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Beth-el.
Then let us read in Deuteronomy 28, from verse 1.
And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all the nations of the earth:
And all these blessings shall come upon thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.
Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.
Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock.
Blessed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough.
Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
The Lord will cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thee: they shall come out against thee one way, and shall flee before thee seven ways.
The Lord will command the blessing upon thee in thy barns, and in all that thou puttest thy hand unto; and He will bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
The Lord will establish thee for a holy people unto Himself, as He hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways.
And all the peoples of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee.
And the Lord will make thee plenteous for good, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee.
The Lord will open unto thee His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain of thy land in its season, and to bless all the work of thy hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.
And the Lord will make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if thou shalt hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them,
And shalt not turn aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
Then in the New Testament, Hebrews 11, verse 21:
By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
And one last little phrase in Isaiah 33, verse 23:
Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not strengthen the foot of their mast, they could not spread the sail: then was the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame took the prey.
Shall we pray? Lord, we are here in Thy presence. We have been worshipping Thee and opening our hearts to Thee in praise and in love, and we thank Thee for Thy presence in our midst.
And now, Lord, as we come to Thee, we pray concerning Thy Word that Thou wilt make it live to us on this last occasion of this conference together. Dear Lord, we do not rest on anything that Thou hast done or said in the past and previous days. We come to Thee afresh, O Lord.
We thank Thee that Thou hast a fresh anointing for this time, for the ministry of Thy Word. Into that anointing we stand by faith, Lord, not only for speaking but for hearing; that Thou wilt cause Thy Word to come to us with such directness and such vitality, with such a living quality, that, Lord, we shall know it is Thyself.
We pray, O Lord, that as we meet in this way for the last time of this conference in this year, Thou wilt release into our hearts the kind of Word that is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword; that kind of Word, Lord, which brings about the fulfilment of Thy purpose concerning us; that kind of Word, Lord, which creates within us the capacity for really serving Thee and being what we ought to be in our Lord Jesus.
Now, Father, we commit ourselves to Thee because we are all so weak, both in speaking and in hearing. We know, O Lord, that we cannot rely upon our natural gifts or resources. We come to Thee, O Lord, and look to Thee that the power of the Holy Spirit will be manifest in this last time together. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now this morning—I am sorry, I said this evening—I want to speak to you once more about Jacob. We have spoken about the love of God and Jacob. We have spoken about the purpose of God and Jacob. We have talked about the face of God and Jacob. This morning, I want to speak about Jacob the overcomer.
The little phrase I want to underline for this time today is found in Isaiah 33: “The lame took the prey.” What an extraordinary little phrase.
I notice that in some modern versions, because it seems so odd and strange, they have tried to translate it other ways to make it a little more sensible, a little more rational, a little more logical. But in actual fact, it is exactly what it says: the lame shall take the prey.
We do not normally think of somebody crippled winning a race. We do not think of someone with a dislocated hip finally winning the prize. We think that anyone who is lame or crippled, or has a dislocated hip or some other injury in their body, is really incapable of running a race, let alone winning it. We do not think that they are going to win the trophy, that they are going to win the prize.
But with God, things are totally different. The wonderful thing about Jacob is the words, “Jacob I loved,” and those other words, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand.”
Jacob was a vessel of mercy aforeprepared by God unto glory. He was a vessel in which, and through which, God wanted to make known the riches of His glory. And so God does extraordinary things with this man.
He finally cripples him. He makes it impossible for the man really ever again to be quite the same. His spontaneous natural strength, his tremendous strengths of personality and soul, his great fathomless depths of self-will—they have been crippled.
The man was crippled from that day onwards. From Jabbok onwards, Jacob limped to the day he died. The very last picture we have of Jacob is of an old man bowing his head as he died and worshipping God, leaning upon the top of his staff.
Actually, the Hebrew says in Genesis that he drew himself up on his bed. The thought is that he clutched the bedpost, drew himself up, bowed his head, and worshipped God. He still had his dislocated hip.
But whether he leaned on his staff, or whether on his bed he drew himself up on the bedpost, the fact remains that the very last picture we have of him in the Bible is the picture of a man whom God had crippled, but who was an overcomer.
What an extraordinary way to sum up the life of this extraordinary man. I do not know, when you read the whole story of Jacob, how you would sum it up. Maybe you would say, “By faith Jacob became Israel.” Maybe you would say, “By faith Jacob was a great man of God.” By faith Jacob became a man who had power with God and with men.
But the way the Bible sums it up, the Holy Spirit puts it into human words, is this: “By faith Jacob, when he was dying”—the very last word, as it were, about Jacob—“when he was dying, blessed the two sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning upon his staff.”
God had done something so deep, so radical, so complete, so of grace, so revealing the faithfulness of God, that this man who stole the blessing from others blessed others and became a blessing to others.
This man who was the bargainer, who could not ever see a situation without immediately seeing what he could get out of it; a man who could not see a relationship without working out how he could prosper through it, how it would serve his interests, how it would best further him and his ambition—this man was a bargainer from beginning to end.
This man had such sharp business acumen, such intelligence, that he could not help himself. He wanted even to manipulate God, let alone his twin brother, his aged father, his uncle Laban, his wives, and everybody else.
As soon as God appeared to him, he said, “Now listen.” In almost the same breath as saying, “How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven,” he was saying, “Now, Lord, listen. If Thou wilt feed me and clothe me, and keep me in safety, and bring me back to this place again and to my father again in peace, then Thou shalt be my God.”
“And I will make this pillar which I have anointed Thy house, and of everything Thou givest me, I will give Thee a tenth.” He could not help it. He was a bargainer.
The last picture we get of this man is of a man who is a worshipper. Now listen to me carefully. All those of you who cannot open your mouths and really worship the Lord, or even worship the Lord in the quietness of your own hearts—the reason you cannot worship the Lord is because you cannot forget yourself.
No person can ever become a worshipper who is self-conscious. Whilst you are at the heart of the matter, whilst you are filling your vision, you cannot worship. You are too full of your aches, your pains, your problems, your circumstances, your husband, your wife, your children, your parents, your boss, your employees, the business, your career. It is all you, you, you.
Maybe it is the brothers and sisters. “Oh, I cannot worship. They are such a poor lot. I have been with them now for a couple of years. When I first came, I thought they were so wonderful. Now I really do feel that what Lance has said about Jacob into Israel is so necessary with all these people.”
So we cannot worship because all we can see is the Jacob in one another. We do not determine to know Jesus Christ in one another, and Him crucified. We see only the faults, the failings, what needs to be done, and sometimes we are horrified by it, and we cannot worship.
A worshipper is someone in whom God has done such a work that they are lost in God, that they move out from themselves into God. They are free from themselves, free from what they are, even though they know themselves. They are able to move out in worship.
The last picture we ever get of this man is of a worshipper. This man was no worshipper naturally; it did not belong to his character or his personality. But the very last picture we have of Jacob is that God has done such a work that Jacob is no longer conscious of Jacob. He is only conscious of God. He is only conscious of others.
The last word in the Bible about this man is that it is all others—the sons of Joseph—and God. Now that is an overcomer.
Overcoming is not occupying some great position down here, being an apostle or a prophet or an elder or a deacon, or some other great ministry. We say, “Oh, look at so-and-so. That must be what overcoming is all about.”
Years ago, I once asked Mr. Sparks, when we were away on holiday in Scotland, and somehow this matter of overcoming came up, “What is overcoming?” He looked at me for a moment, and then he said in a way that I cannot copy, and only Mr. Sparks could possibly say, “Overcoming? Overcoming is that you are still in the race at the end.”
I have never forgotten that. You see, there are many who begin the race, but they do not finish it. There are many who start the course, but they do not stay on it.
Overcoming is to so discover the grace of God and the power of God made available to us that we stay on course in spite of our faults and our weaknesses and even our sins, and come finally to the place where we are no longer Jacob but Israel. That is overcoming.
This matter of overcoming is tremendously important to the Lord. You know, the Lord is looking for candidates for eternal government.
You must not think that just because you see what the church is, that means you are an overcomer; or that just because you belong to a company in which the whole truth of overcoming is understood, that means you are an overcomer. There is no such thing as second-hand overcoming.
You cannot overcome by being related to others and hiding in their shadow. You yourself have got to follow the Lord.
The Lord will so order the relationships in your life, the circumstances in your life, and the situations in your life, that you yourself will have to discover the God of election. You will have to discover the God of faithfulness. You will have to discover the God of provision.
You will have to make your own discovery of the grace which God has made available to you personally, and the power which God has made available to you personally. You will have to come to your own Jabbok, where, through the work of the cross, God with His finger will dislocate your spiritual hip and paralyse you at the core of your strength.
Then you will know the Holy Spirit upon you and in you, beginning to do the work which God has called you to.
Jacob the overcomer. What a wonderful thing it is that we have been called to reign with God.
There are not so many who come to the throne. There is an “if” in this matter: “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.”
Why is there an “if” there? Because this matter of reigning is not just a matter of being converted, not just a matter of being forgiven, not even just a matter of being justified. These things are foundational.
But this matter of reigning is a matter of deep, inward, personal, spiritual history and experience. God will bring no one to His throne who has not had a deep hidden history with Himself, and who has not got a deep inward spiritual experience of Himself.
Even our Lord Jesus learned obedience through the things which He suffered. He was made perfect—that is, complete—through sufferings, even He who knew no sin.
He came to the place of maturity. He came to the place of experience. He came to the throne, qualified for the throne by the things which He passed through Himself as a man.
And if anyone would come to the throne, we must remember the words of the risen Head of the Church:
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit down with Me in My throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
We have to follow in the steps of the Master. The purpose of God for Jacob was that he should not be beneath, but above; that he should not be the tail, but the head.
The purpose of God for Jacob and his seed—the people that would come out of him—was that they should not be at the mercy of heathen nations, at the mercy of the powers of darkness, or at the mercy of world circumstances. They should be dictating them. They should be above them. They should be reigning with God. They should be in the throne with God.
They should know the will of God and be instrumental in the realisation of the will of God. That was the purpose of God for Jacob.
We might well question, why did God choose Jacob then? A man so different, so other, so contrary. God chose Jacob because He loved him, and because God was going to do in him such a work that this man, who was anything but a man reigning with God, anything but a man who knew the ways of God and walked in the ways of God, should, by the work of the Holy Spirit and the cross, come to the place where he reigned with God.
He would become a prince with God, a man with power with God and with men.
Dear Jacob was certainly not the head. He was the tail. He was the slave of his own passions, the slave of circumstances, the slave to others, if you understand what I am trying to say.
Because of that, he had to manipulate them. He could not trust God. He could not wait for God. He could not say, “Well, Lord, Thou hast given Thy Word: ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’ I can trust Thee to do this thing. I will put myself at Thy disposal. I will walk with Thee. I will let Thee do in me what Thou wantest to do.”
He had to manipulate it. He had to produce it. He had to get it off the ground. He had to organise it. It was Jacob’s nature.
Jacob’s way was not all glorious. Even after he became Israel, as I mentioned last night, he buried his beloved Rachel, the one great light in his life.
His sons were a constant source of concern to him all the way through. All the rivalries, the jealousies, and the dark side of it—the depravity that came out of them. Oh, Jacob’s way was not a bed of roses.
Sometimes we think, “Oh, if I could only have a real experience of the Lord, if I could have my Peniel, if I could see the face of God and He would change me, then it will all be wonderful. I shall float along, power, power. I shall just tremble with the power of God. People will see the power of God in me.”
No. Maybe you will bury a Rachel. Maybe you will find a Reuben who will compromise you in the most intimate relationships of your life. Maybe you will find a Simeon and a Levi who destroy your reputation. Maybe you will have a Dinah—who was some girl! She exhibited quite a little of her father Jacob’s character. Maybe your Joseph will be torn away from you and sold into slavery.
No, this man became Israel, but his sufferings did not end. In one sense, they began.
Whereas before, in the strength of his own life, he would have hardened himself against the whole thing and somehow manipulated it all and tried to get something out of it, now, because he walked with God, he was infinitely more sensitive. The slightest thing brought pain to his heart.
Jacob learned something, I reckon, of travail in those following years. He learned what it was to see himself in others, and to know that only God could touch them.
He could not be partaker of their sins or partner with them in such things. He also knew what he had been, and in one sense he could not just condemn them out of hand. He knew they also had to come to their Jabbok.
Now this matter of reigning with God is no easy thing. Jacob may have suffered after his experience at Peniel, but he was a different man.
Somewhere at the very heart of his being, the cross had touched his soul. That does not mean he had no soul, but it meant that his self-life was dislocated. It would limp forever after.
Many, many people of God—and I say it to myself—have such strong souls that their spirits limp.
Only the cross can so do a work in our soul that our soul is still our soul, but it limps and our spirit reigns. Then, for the first time, God begins to get His way.
Oh, what a wonderful word it is in Ephesians 2, those verses that we know so well:
Even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved),
And raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.
What a wonderful word that is. We know that we have been made alive if we are really born again. We know we have been made alive. I think we can go a step further: many of us say we know we have been raised with Him. Praise God for that.
We know what it is to be raised with Him, to be part of a new creation, of a new man, part of the house of God. But, oh, if we could only know what it is to be made to sit with Him in heavenly places—that is reigning.
I think I have told you before: years ago there was a very famous servant of the Lord who used to have a motto in his study. It was carved in wood above the mantelpiece: “Look down.”
It never failed to do the same thing to every Christian with a little bit of knowledge who went into his study. They would look at this motto and say, “Look down? Shouldn’t that be ‘Look up’?” And he would say, “It depends on your position.”
If you are underneath, look up. But if you are seated with Christ in heavenly places, look down. Look down. See it all from the position of being seated with Christ, of being together with Christ, of reigning with Christ.
Jacob was a different man. The face of God had shone on him and left its mark. The mark was a crippled soul.
It does not mean that there was no poetry ever in the soul of Jacob, no music in his soul, no appreciation of beauty, no warmth of personality. Let us say this so that there is no misunderstanding.
There is a kind of teaching which so denigrates the place of the soul in the believer’s life that we become spiritual machinery. We have no soul. We cannot weep. We cannot be warm. We cannot be spontaneous, because we ought not to be.
Dear friend, this is not what it is to be a spiritual man. To be a spiritual man means simply this: your spirit, in union with Christ, is being governed by the Spirit of God, so that your soul comes under the government of the Spirit of God in your spirit.
That is a spiritual man. So be as warm as you will, and poetic as you will, and have as great an appreciation of beauty as you will. But let it be under the government of the Lord. Let Him hold you back.
Let there be within you, through the cross, a knowledge inwardly: “I cannot go any further in this. I cannot go beyond this point in this. There is a limitation.” Your hip is dislocated.
Now this surgery, this spiritual surgery, only the Spirit of God can perform, and He does it through the Word of God. It says in Hebrews 4:12:
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
What does it mean? It means that when God, through the cross by His Spirit, starts to do such a work in us that we are spiritually dislocated, there is a division between spirit and soul. We know what we are in ourselves, and we know what the Lord is in us.
This is a tremendous place to come to. I have no doubt at all that this is the beginning of overcoming.
You cannot overcome if you do not know what you are, if you do not know what you have got in yourself, because always there will be an area of deception. Always there can be mixture. Always you can be tricked up.
But when the Lord begins to do this work, you know what you are, and you know what the Lord is in you. You know what it is to sanctify the Lord your God in your heart.
Israel: reigning with God. Overcoming does not come easily. We cannot come to the throne of God except via our own Calvary and Pentecost.
Some people have got to Calvary; they have not got to Pentecost. Some people have tried to get to Pentecost and bypassed Calvary. You cannot be an overcomer unless you come yourself to your own experience of both Calvary and Pentecost.
Now, is this not a marvellous phrase: “The lame takes the prey”? I cannot think of anything more wonderful.
I would have thought, if the Lord dislocated my hip, I would say, “Well, that is the end of it.” Many believers are like this. They sort of say, “Oh, I have seen myself. I have seen myself. No, I cannot do anything.” Then they say, “Not I, but Christ. Not I, but Christ. Not I, but Christ.”
Of course it is true. But the Apostle Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live.” Yet not I—what does he say? “I have been crucified with Christ.” All right, that means no more Paul. “Nevertheless I live.” Oh, Paul is back again.
“But I live.” Oh, he is back again: “By faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
When a person says, “Oh, I have seen myself. I have really seen the Lord, and I have seen myself. It cannot be me any more. No more me,” then we sort of fade away. We sit in the back row. We sit in the shadow and the side.
Anyone asks us to play: “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not I, not I.” As if Christ can come up and play the guitar! Has Christ for Himself gone on the piano and played?
My dear friend, you must work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work of His good pleasure. Of course it is not you; it is Christ, and yet it is you. Yes, but it is Christ in you.
So now you come to the place where you say, “I cannot do anything. I am no good. I have been crucified with Christ.” Do not just sit down in a kind of morbid, passive, quiet state and say, “Oh, like Jacob, I have come to my Jabbok. I am no good.”
“I have been the power and energy of my Christian life so far. I have been the source of it all in the fellowship in which I am found. Oh dear, no more I, no more I.” In another few years, it will still be just you.
Yes, because this “no more I” is another expression of you.
What we want are people who will say, “Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
So when you are asked to play the guitar, you will come. You know very well you do not want yourself to come, but the Lord will take those hands and use them. He plays through your hands on the piano. He will use your lips to speak.
Some of us can speak and it is just us. We can also speak, and it is the Lord. How shall they hear without a preacher? Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. And the word of Christ comes by those that are sent.
How shall they hear without a preacher? Shall we say, “Not I, not I. There has been too much me in the ministry of the Word. I will not speak again. I will retire altogether. I will do no more. It must be the Lord. It must be the Lord. Jacob is finished”?
No, you have got to go forward in faith. You came to that Jabbok by faith. Now you must walk with God by faith.
Now you have to do all the things you did before, only you know very well that it is of no use unless the Lord is the heart and source and energy of it.
Because it is God who worketh. If you do not work out your salvation, God will not work in you. But when you by faith work out your salvation, God will work in you, both to will and to work.
Oh dear, that does not leave much to us in one sense, does it? If He is in us both to will and to work of His good pleasure, what a paradox this is: lameness winning. The lame takes the prey.
I think of other wonderful Scriptures, probably well known to some of you. I will just quote them in connection with this. In 2 Corinthians 4:7-10:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves;
We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair;
Pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed;
Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
Here is the paradox: an earthen vessel, an earthen vessel—exceeding greatness of power; treasure in an earthen vessel. Well, you do not normally put treasure in a clay vessel, do you?
Here you have the lame taking the prey. God puts the treasure in an earthen vessel so that the exceeding greatness of His power may be seen to be of God and not from ourselves.
Dear Jacob, from Peniel onwards, it was the exceeding greatness of God’s power displayed, expressed as not from Jacob any more, but from God.
What about this side of it? Pressed on every side, perplexed, pursued, smitten down. It does not sound like an overcomer, does it?
We think, “Oh, if we are really going on with the Lord, especially if we have been anointed by the Holy Spirit, we are not people who are perplexed. We know everything. The Lord speaks to us. He enlightens us. We are not perplexed.” But the Apostle Paul says, “We are pressed on every side, perplexed, pursued, smitten down.”
But here is the other side: not straitened, not unto despair, not forsaken, not destroyed.
Here is one side: always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. That is the dislocated hip. Here is the other side: that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body. That is Israel.
How marvellous, then, when we begin to understand these things. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, God said unto me:
My grace is sufficient for thee: for My power is made perfect in weakness.
We do not think of power and weakness as necessary to each other. Yet God says His power cannot be made perfect except in weakness. It is the dislocated hip.
Only when Jacob has known the face of God and the finger of God dislocating him, his natural strength broken, then the power of God tabernacles upon him.
So the Apostle Paul says:
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
What a lovely word. The power of Christ not visiting me, the power of Christ not merely using me, but the power of Christ making me its habitation—the tent of God being set up in my life, the power of God tabernacling upon me, resting upon me. Oh, what an experience.
Do you begin to see something of this dislocation? You have it in another way if you go back to John 12:24-26:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will the Father honor.
Now, this honouring is not just respect. It means He will honour him with a position in the government.
How then does any person come to be honoured by God, to come to a position in the throne of God? By falling into the ground and dying.
Jacob was a whole grain. There were qualities about Jacob that were very beautiful, very attractive. There were qualities about Jacob that were very ugly, very unattractive.
But only when that whole grain of Jacob fell into the ground, and that tenacious grip of Jacob’s will let go of his self-life, and it fell into the ground and died, did he bear much fruit.
It is interesting that when He goes on, He says, “He that loveth his life”—and the word in the Greek is really soul—“he that loveth his soul shall lose it.”
“And he that loseth his soul, or hateth his soul in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal.”
There is a teaching—I do not myself go along with it—that began with a brother called Philip Mauro in New York many years ago, at the end of the last century, that our soul should be destroyed totally; that by our soul being annihilated, as it were, by the cross, we should then in the life to come receive back this soul.
I am not at all sure that is right. What I have noticed is this: when people with the deepest instinct in their being to preserve themselves, to protect themselves, to fulfil themselves, come to the cross and suddenly are faced with a stark alternative—either yourself intact or yourself surrendered—I have noticed that those who have surrendered their soul, it comes back.
But it comes back in a different way. They are such warm people, such loving people, such spontaneous people. They are such original people.
The clammy hands of their self-will and self-interest have let go, and God has brought their soul into life eternal. That is how I see it.
In other words, it is a dislocated hip. It is a soul that is dislocated, but still shining through it is life eternal. The spirit is in the place of government.
Now, we need—I could say so much about this, but obviously our time is finished, really. This matter of the lame taking the prey: oh, if we could only talk a little bit about the weapons of our warfare.
We need to take prey, do you not know that? I am sure you do. It does not matter where we gather, in any part, we should be people who are taking prey for God.
There are captives. Sometimes it is situations which are captive to Satan, to the powers of darkness. Sometimes there are lives that are in bondage to the powers of darkness. Sometimes there are situations right in our families, in our homes, in our life together as the church of God, which are bound by Satan. We need to take them prey.
The trouble is that the weapons of our warfare are often weapons of the flesh. It says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4:
The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds.
This matter of overcoming is not just something for eternity; it is a matter we have got to learn now. We have got to learn not only individually but together how to use those weapons which are mighty through God to the casting down of strongholds.
We need to learn how to put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able, in this wrestling with principalities, with powers, with the world rulers of this darkness, with the hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenly places, to stand for God and stand with God until the prey is delivered out of the hand of the mighty.
Dear people of God, Manfred has spoken to us about the house of God, the church of God, and those wonderful words, “I will build My church.” Our brother Stephen has spoken to us about the kingdom, about the King, and the sons, and the character.
What we need to hear are these words:
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
Excuse me, I am misquoting it. Keys of the kingdom. We had a little experience with keys this morning. Keys are such important things. They can disrupt everything.
The life of God’s people is totally disrupted by the loss of the keys. We are shut out of things we ought to be in, and we are not able to get out of some situations in which we are locked in. We need keys.
Keys are vital because they are the authority of the Lord. But it is only those who know something about overcoming who can use those keys. It is not that you are perfect. It is that the grace of God is with you and the power of God is upon you, and you are learning how to do the will of God.
You are learning to distinguish what is the mind of God in any given situation, and then to work together with God in the secret place, that that will of God shall be done.
There are captives of the enemy, prey that the powers of darkness have no right to hold, who need to be free. I think of those wonderful words in Isaiah 49:24-25:
Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captives be delivered?
But thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.
Lawful captives—that is, captives who, because of sin and disobedience and transgression and abomination, are lawful captives of the powers of darkness. But thus saith the Lord: even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered.
Oh, if we could see something of this. There are those that are captive to the powers of darkness. This prey needs to be taken. But it is the lame who takes the prey.
Oh, for men and women crippled by the cross and empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit, so that God’s purpose might be fulfilled.
We can talk and talk about all these marvellous aspects of truth, and until there are men and women being changed from Jacob into Israel, there will be no possibility of the prey being taken. We need plenty of lame people.
That, I believe, is the great need of this present hour. So I must close.
Jacob has become a worshipper. This taking of the prey by the lame has much to do with worship.
This battling with the powers of darkness—this wrestling with principalities, with powers, with world rulers of darkness, with hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenly places; this casting down of strongholds, of imaginations, of every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God; bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ—has much to do with worship.
It is not all heavy, kind of firing of salvos. It has much to do with worship. Jacob became a worshipper, so unlike the old Jacob.
I cannot help feeling that that is the problem of many of us. We would not perhaps put ourselves totally in the category of Jacob, but we are bargainers.
We say, “Lord, You do this and this, and I will do this and this. Lord, if You only get me through that exam, I will do this and this and this for You.”
Or we say, “Lord, now You just do this and this and this, and I will be this and this and this.” We cannot help it, and the Lord smiles, just like parents smile sometimes over their children’s little deceits that they feel cannot be seen by anybody, but which mother and father can see right through.
Father in heaven is just the same. It is not that He condones it. He knows it is going to be changed, but He smiles. Yes, He says, “Jacob will strike the bargain.” What Jacob does not know is that he is going to pass through a Jabbok before he gets back there.
He had no idea. “Oh, I have got the Lord on my side now. Food, clothing, safety, and brought back to see my aged father in peace. Oh my! And of course, I must remember I am going to build the Lord a house. That is my part, you see. And the tenth of everything.”
Actually, it is an interesting thing: we never read of this tenth ever after. What did he do with it? Perhaps he felt that he was doing so good all the time, every time the issue came up of giving the tenth. I do not know, but it is a very interesting thing that he said he was going to give a tenth, but we never hear of the tenth.
God knew that this Jacob of His, whom He loved so greatly, was going to come back to that spot clothed, fed, safe, provided for, but as a transformed man.
Jacob did not know that. The Lord did.
You know, we are all like this as believers. Oh, we are people who steal the blessing, are we not?
When I think of myself when I was young, how I used to dump myself on this one or that one with all my problems, I just felt that they were the most ungrateful, unloving, uncrucified believers you had ever set your eyes upon because they could not listen to my woes and problems for hours on end.
They might be having a happy family occasion, but I came in, and then I had to tell them my problem, what it was, the thing, you know. If they did not stop and show great sympathy and so on, they were nothing.
I always was stealing their blessing. They could not have a happy birthday, or a family occasion, or something else, or a get-together of any kind, that I would not be homing in on it with some big problem of my own.
Now, I do not think I am so terrible as some, and I am probably worse than others. But do you not think we are all like that before God really starts to deal with us? We steal the blessing.
On one hand, we are serving the Lord; on the other hand, we are destroying everything. On one hand, we are contributing to the life of the church; on the other hand, we are destroying the very atmosphere in which it lives.
We steal blessing. It is not always by slaying a calf and clothing our arms and our neck with fur and somehow aping Esau’s voice, but we do it other ways. We still steal the blessing.
Now the grace of God is so wonderful that this Jacob, once God has dislocated his hip, becomes a blessing. No more does he steal blessings; he becomes a blessing. Wherever he goes, he blesses.
You know, this wonderful old man, before he died, had become such a blessing in the land of Egypt that, when finally he died, Egypt turned out in their thousands to mourn.
Pharaoh sent up such a huge company of Egyptians, with all the official paraphernalia, that the locals around Hebron called the field Abel-mizraim, the field of Egypt, forever after.
This man stole people’s blessings before, but now he had become such a blessing that when he died, even the unsaved recognised him as someone upon whom the hand of God had been placed, and someone who lay at the very heart of divine history.
Oh, dear people of God, we have said so much about Jacob and these other matters. They are all related: the house of God, the kingdom of God, reigning with God. But the heart of this whole thing is you and me.
You are Jacob; I am Jacob. You have got to become Israel. I have got to become Israel.
It is a very beautiful picture we have at the end of the Bible, is it not? We see a vessel of mercy which God aforeprepared unto glory, and through him we see the riches of God’s grace and glory.
I picture Jacob, an old, white-haired man, 147 years of age, wrinkled skin, white hair, but radiant with the glory of God.
I see in his eyes a suffering that had come to what he called “the years of my pilgrimage,” which had not been like his father’s, but few—meaning, of course, that he did not live to the great age of his father and grandfather. He called it the years of his sorrow. It is in his eyes.
But the deceit is gone. The supplanting energy has gone. It is the grace of God, and the beauty of God, and the love of God that is there. That is the last picture we get of this man.
As he is dying, he blesses those two sons of Joseph, and he worships, leaning on his staff.
Dear ones, that is where God must bring you and me. If, at the end, we are worshippers; if, at the end, we are a blessing to others; if, at the end, we have become fruitful; if, at the end, we have possessed the land which God has given us; if we have become princes with God and with men—it is because of His love. He never left us nor forsook us.
That is the key to Jacob. When we hear those words of the psalmist, “The Lord of hosts is with us,” we understand: God has a purpose to fulfil. God has a work to accomplish. God has a will that has to be done, a kingdom which has got to come, and the Lord of the armies of heaven is with us.
And the God of Jacob is our refuge. Shall we pray?
Father, we pray together that Thou wilt make Thy Word a living reality in our lives. I do not suppose, Lord, there is any of us here who does not want to be an overcomer. We long, Lord, that we might be those who will, by Thy grace alone, overcome and inherit the throne.
Father, so much has been said in this week about the church of God, about the kingdom of God, and about Jacob. Lord, watch over Thy Word to perform it, we pray. Grant, O Lord, that this Word may become flesh and blood.
Grant, Lord, that we might become truly, not only in name but in character and in power, the Israel of God. Grant, Lord, we pray, that we might become a blessing; that we may be princes with Thee and with men; that we, Lord, may become a people—one may become a thousand, the small one a strong nation.
Grant, O Lord, that we may possess all that is ours. Grant these things, O Lord, we pray. And we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.