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Before I share the indispensable principle and we look in the word, I want to begin with a little clarification. A misconception I think I might have communicated and I just want to make sure that’s clear. I said that God using Jacob as an illustration wants to deliver us from pictures. That’s absolutely true but it’s incomplete. I want to make sure because I don’t want everybody to start scraping pictures. God uses pictures in a wonderful way. The full statement should be that God wants to deliver us from pictures as a rule of life, and that makes a big difference. The truth is that the pictures point to the reality and they’re very important. Marriage is a picture; I’m not going to scrap that. The Bible is a picture; I’m not going to scrap that. This precious table we just celebrated is a picture; I’m not going to scrap that. Water baptism is a picture but if that’s all you had is the picture, then it is worthless. It’s moot. What I’m suggesting is that pictures are God’s objective test on reality. So, all of the pictures – the tithing, praying, laying of hands – is all pictures. If all you had was the pictures, it means nothing. But the picture is God’s reminder to keep us in the reality. So, thank God for the pictures but don’t use that as a rule of life; don’t go after the picture. The picture is objective test to make sure we’re looking to the reality. I hope that straightened it out. I was chatting with someone yesterday and I think I had communicated the wrong idea. “So, done with pictures; I don’t need to read my Bible, go to church, fellowship with God.” No, we’re not saying that.
As we come to God’s word, there’s a principle of Bible Study that is absolutely indispensable. I keep repeating that. I do it deliberately in the same words, hoping that it will lodge in your heart. Helpless dependence on God’s Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit in life and Bible Study we need the Lord. I’m going to share this verse before we go to prayer. Amos 8:11, “’Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord.’”
Let’s pray. Our Father, we commit this session, this meditation, unto You. We thank You for Your word and we thank You for the Holy Spirit that always points us to our Lord Jesus who You’ve made central in the Godhead. Now, Lord, as Moses prayed in Ezekiel, let me know Thy ways, that I might know Thee. Lord, we’re going to look at Your ways, your ways with Jacob. Teach us Your ways, that we might know You more intimately. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Once again, very quickly this weekend is going, but I’m still intensely focused on why we’re gathered at Hashawha, and that is to see the Lord in perhaps a new way, that we might have a more intimate relationship with Him. Our Bible illustration this weekend is Jacob, his life, his history, redemptive history, his testimony. As you know, that spiritual story of Jacob revolves around those two wonderful pictures – the birthright and the blessing. Jacob had a passion, though he did not go after the reality, he ran after the pictures. He wanted the birthright and all that it promised on the level of earth, and he wanted the blessing and all that promised on the level of earth.
I’m not going to review all the tactics of Jacob; you know the story. He’s a schemer, he’s a heal snatcher, he’s a wire puller, and he’s trying to manipulate and trying to do everything his own way. I pointed out how he had cheated Esau; he purchased the birthright and then he cheated him out of the blessing.
I want to review this much just to set before your hearts again. I know you know but what is the reality of the birthright. The birthright was the right of the firstborn to manifest Christ to his generation. Through the firstborn Christ would be given to the world. The principle of the firstborn is privilege, the purpose for which God created you, the purpose for which He redeemed you and redeemed me, was that we might have the privilege of presenting Christ to the world. The question comes, “How can I do that?” The answer is not without the blessing. You need the blessing of God. The blessing is the enablement to do the privilege. I want to manifest Christ and Abraham found out that the blessing was grace and that it was received by faith and it’s the life of God. It’s not seeds as of many family; it’s the seed which is Christ. Abraham got the blessing and Isaac finally got the blessing, and so the birthright is our privilege, and the blessing is the enablement in order to manifest; it’s His grace.
Genesis 17:7, “I will establish My covenant between Me and your descendant after throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you.” That is the reality.
When we left off, Jacob was walking away from the first turning point in his life, the dream at Bethel, and Jacob had turned God’s unconditional promises into a condition, “If You do this and that and the other thing, then You will be my God.” Genesis 28:21, the last part, Jacob made a vow, “If God will be with me and keep me on the journey that I take, will give me food to eat, garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God.”
The immediate background of where we left off, Esau wanted to kill Jacob. Genesis 27:36, “He said, ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob; he supplanted me these two times; he took away my birthright and now, behold, he has taken away my blessing. After my father dies, I’m going out and kill Jacob, my brother.” Genesis 27:43, “Jacob listened to his mother, Rebecca, ‘Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Harran, to my brother Laban’s and stay with him a few days until your brother’s fury subsides, until your brother’s anger against you has subsided, and he forgets what you did to him. Then I’ll send word and you can go from there.” That was a five-hundred-mile journey. “Go take it, Jacob, and stay for a couple of days, and I’ll let you know when Esau cools down, and then you can come back.” He had no idea that he would be on the lam for twenty years; he would be escaping, on the run for twenty long years. It’s because he walked away from the reality of the vision which was Christ and grace. He missed the Lord; the ladder was our Lord Jesus.
In chapter 28 we have his first turning point, and then later in 32 we have the second point. What comes between the picture and then when he comes to the reality? What come in between that? The answer is in one word “preparation”. God can not let Jacob go. “Jacob have I loved.” He loved Jacob and now for twenty years he’s going to prepare him for the wrestling that will finally bring him to the reality. In these chapters we’re going to look at how God prepared Jacob in order to be ready for the reality.
I want to set before your hearts an all embracing principle of what God is going to do and what he’s going to use, the ways of God. What is the way that He always uses when somebody walks away from the reality? Jacob walked away from the ladder, which was Christ, and from the covenant which was grace. He had a clear word – Christ/grace – and he walked away. God uses a principle. That’s why I opened with Amos 8:11, “Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or thirst for water, but rather hearing the words of God.’” God is going to prepare Jacob and all he represents by a famine. Not a famine for bread, and not a famine for water, and not a famine for the picture. He’s going to get so fed up with the picture. It doesn’t satisfy. The opposite is true. These twenty years are going to prove a very productive time for Jacob. By the time it ends he has a large family and a big flock, and Laban is even depending on him. That’s what was in the birthright, “I’m going to have wealth, and I’m going to have a family, and people are going to bow down to me.” Of course, Jacob took all the credit. He had a large family, and he took credit for that. He had increased flocks, and he took credit for that. He’s doing it all, you know. Laban was depending on him. He was proud of that. But God sent a famine to his heart, a heart famine. He had it all; that’s what he was running after; it’s what he was chasing. It was empty; it was nothing. He had it all. God gave him the picture but in his heart there was a dryness, a famine. He was aching for something more and we’re going to see it as we look through these chapters.
Isaiah 28:20 describes Jacob’s situation, “The bed is too short on which to stretch out, and the blanket is too small to wrap oneself in. He’s got it all; he made his bed, but he can’t get comfortable in the bed he made; it’s too short. He’s got covers but he can’t stay warm because it’s not the reality; it’s only the picture. The Prophet Haggai illustrated the same famine in Haggai 1:6, “You have sown much but have harvested little. You eat and there is not enough to be satisfied. You drink and there is not enough to become drunk. You put on clothing and no one is warm enough. He who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes.” He’s got it all, and you’ve got nothing. Your full, but no, you’re empty; it’s a sieve. There’s nothing there. He had plenty to eat but he’s still hungry, and plenty to drink but he’s still thirsty. He had a lot of warm clothes, but he is still cold. He had an abundance of money, but where did it go? Everything went out. God is to answer the questions that Isaiah asked in chapter 55 and verse 2&3, “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me; eat what is good. Delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you.”
Jacob walks away, but he’s not alone. God is going with him; God loves him and can’t let him go. God is going after him. Jacob has the birthright but what good is it? Jacob has the blessing; it’s empty and dry and means nothing. Jacob’s experience with Laban wore him out. His life with Laban was very difficult. Laban was more of a Jacob than Jacob was. What did Jacob meet when he went to Laban? He met himself and he learned to hate himself. God does that. He shows us ourselves sometimes in others. But when you read the record, Laban is plotting against Jacob, and Jacob is plotting against Laban, and it’s going back and forth. By the end of that twenty years, because of the famine, the heart famine, Jacob was weary and heavy laden. That’s a good place to be because of Matthew 11:28, “Come unto Me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest.” God is going to work in him an emptiness; He’s going to work in him a dryness; He’s going to bring a famine; He’s going to make him see that everything he has been pursuing is worthless. By the end he’s going to be so miserable, he’s going to say, “Laban, you’ve got to let me go. I can’t take anymore. I’ve got to get out of here.”
That’s the story we’re going to look at. Genesis 29 to 31, those three chapters tell the story. I’m not going to tell you the story as it unfolds. It’s too complicated. If you read those chapters, you’ll see how complicated it is. You have the clashing of two dysfunctional families, each one going after the other one, bad decisions, inevitable consequences. Those chapters are filled with deceit and superstition and idolatry and polygamy and religion. It’s a terrible, terrible section and a tangled mess. I promise you that I am sparing you by not going into all the details in this twenty years.
When he arrived, you know the record, he was alone. He went five hundred miles and he’s alone. When he left, he had two wives, two concubines, eleven sons, a daughter, and many flocks. He had what he thought was the birthright and the blessing. As you go through the story, the birth of each child is a story all its own. I’d rather take those three chapters, and this is what we’re going to do, and show you a principle on one of the ways of God and how God work to bring a person to emptiness, bring a famine not of bread and water but of the word, to bring him to the place that he’s hungry and says, “This is not working. There’s got to be more.”
I’m going to go through the events, not in order. I might start in the middle and then take some facts and illustrate principles, in the middle, at the beginning and at the end, and so on. Before we do this, I need to do a little donkey work and ask you to be patient because I want to establish the Bible truth on how God does this. I told you why He’s preparing Jacob. He’s preparing Jacob to see through the picture and see the reality. That’s why. Now I want to show you how He does, and how He does it every time. If you have walked away from the wonderful reality that you’ve heard, and we’ve been singing about and praising and people have testified and they got up and it’s just wonderful. That’s the reality. I want to show you how He’s going to do it.
This might be review for most of you but I’m going to read a couple of verses, John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” That’s clear; that Bible verse is clear. If you come to the Lord, you were drawn. Nobody can come unless he’s drawn. Here is another verse, John 12:32, “If I am lifted up from the earth, I’ll draw all men to Myself.” You’ve got to be drawn; who does He draw? Everybody. So, now you need how, how does God draw everybody?
This much is clear, whether you are a Calvinist or Armenian, the same way He draws, does He force a will? Does He drag you? Does He compel you? Are you elected? Has God done it beforehand and you have no choice? Is it coercion? Does He control men’s will? I think the simplest answer of how God draws everybody is in Acts 17:26, “He made from one man,” that’s Adam, “every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.”
In the immediate context, God is speaking of His sovereign rule over nations. He appoints their times and appoints their boundaries. There is mystery in that but that’s the fact. But the principle also applies to every person. It’s clear from verse 27 the reason He sets times and boundaries are so that they would seek God. That’s drawing. He sets times because He’s drawing. He sets boundaries because He’s drawing. It applies to nations, it applies to the unsaved, it applies to the saved, it applies to those who are walking with the Lord, to those who are backsliders, God draws the same way all the time. He appoints your times and He appoints your boundaries. To say it another way, He’s not going to force your will. He won’t touch your will; He’s going to touch the circumstances all around your will. He’s going to entice you and invite and He’s going to draw you, so that you might come to Him. It’s to the same end that we might seek Him. Acts 17:26, “Having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.” Somebody said earlier that from before birth God chose you. And he did; he determined your times, when you were born, where you were born, when you moved, where you live, who your neighbors are, who drove your bus, who was your coach, who was your teacher, who was your friend, who was your relative, who is your boss, who is your co-worker. He’s going to touch your circumstances; He’s going to put you in a place drawing your will. “Listen to Me.” Sometimes those place He’s going to appoint. He’s not going to touch your will, but He can touch the circumstances that led to that car crash, He can control your health, He can give a bad doctor’s report. He’s touching circumstances. That’s how He draws because every circumstance gives you an opportunity to come to Him. He’s been doing that in our lives since you were born. He’s been appointing your times and the boundaries of your habitations, but He’s not going to force your will, right to the last minute.
Take Judas as an example. What opportunities God gave him. He gave one opportunity after another. He chose him to be a disciple, he became the treasurer, he heard Jesus teach and preach, he saw miracles, he might have done miracles when they went out. “I’m giving you this chance, this chance, this chance. Will you come, please come. I can’t let you go. Can you come. I won’t touch your will and I won’t force you. All the way to Gethsemane, Judas at the end, he makes this deal that the one I kiss, that’s Him. “Don’t go there, Judas, don’t do that.” We’re in Gethsemane and He’s sweating drops of blood, and all of a sudden when it’s over, He woke His disciples and said, “Let’s go; the one that deceives Me and is going to betray Me is at the door.” It’s all about Judas. He goes and says, “Who do you seek?” He said, “Jesus of Nazareth,” and He said, “I am,” and they all fell down and were paralyzed. John adds, “And Judas was with them.” Judas fell down paralyzed. He gets up, and he kisses Jeseus. The kiss was to identify Christ. “Judas, you don’t have to do this. Who are you coming for? It’s Me and I’m here.” He gives him that last opportunity, and he blows it.
He did the same thing with Pilate. Pilate was back and forth and trying to be neutral. It finally came to the judgment seat, and he’s ready now to make his final decision, and in the middle of the court case, this messenger comes running in, breaks up the court and says, “Don’t do this; your wife had a dream and she said to have nothing to do with this man.” Final opportunity, and then we read, “He delivered Him over to be crucified.” He’s going to appoint your times and your boundaries and give every opportunity, invite you right to the end. And Jacob walks away and now we’re going to watch God appoint his times and boundaries in these twenty years. God loves Jacob. God saw in advance that ultimately, he would say yes, and God is going work now in these years to make him as dry as a bone to show him his emptiness.
In his time with Laban, Laban is going to get sort of sick of his self-sufficiency. Anyway, let me go to the Jacob story. Before I do that, I’m going to read this little poem by John Newton, the one who wrote “Amazing Grace”.
How tedious and tasteless the hours
When Jesus no longer I see
Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flowers
Have all lost their sweetness to me
The midsummer sun shines but dim
And fields strive in vain to look gay
But when I’m happy in Him
December is as pleasant as May
How tedious and tasteless the hours, and these twenty years this famine for the reality were tedious and tasteless for Laban.
Now, you’ve got to remember that this is not just a Bible story; this guy was real and he lived this. This is actual and this is literal. As I said, Laban outdid him in deceit, and he just became a concave mirror so Jacob could learn to hate Jacob.
All through these examples I’m going to show you that Jacob says, “Look at what I did,” and then later says, “I look back at that, and that wasn’t me. There was somebody behind the scenes, someone controlling my times and the boundaries of my habitation.” For example, when Laban deceived Jacob into marrying Leah instead of Rachel, Laban ends up, the schemer, getting seven more years of work out of Jacob. Laban kept moving the boundaries, Genesis 31:41, Jacob looks back, “These twenty years I’ve been in your house, I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, six years for your flock, and you changed my wages ten times,” and every time we see Jacob trying to counterattack. Jacob’s sin found him out, and he saw himself.
When Jacob arrives, we see that he’s still self-sufficient. He’s carving out his own destiny and he’s proud and happy and he’s got a skip in his step and he’s got some religion now. Proverbs 28:26 says, “He who trusts his own heart is a fool.” That’s true; you don’t want to trust yourself, and Jacob was a fool. But these twenty years God prepares him.
The record shows that on the level of earth he was prosperous but here’s what he said. This is Jacob speaking Genesis 31:39, “That which was torn of your beast I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it myself. You required it of my hand, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. Thus, I was, by day the heat consumed me; the frost by night. My sleep fled from my eyes. “I work hard for you, Laban, and I did all of this work.” Later, her looks back and he says, “You know, I think it was the Lord that caused all this blessing.” When Rachel couldn’t get pregnant, they followed superstition, Genesis 30:14, “Rachel said to Leah, ‘Give me some of your son’s mandrakes (look that story up on Google and you’ll see it looks like a fetus, the root of the Mandrake and they have the idea if you hang this in front of somebody’s eyes, then she’ll get pregnant because she’ll see this. It was all superstition). When Laban talked Jacob into working six years after the fourteen, he had already worked, they made a deal, and the deal was in verse 32, “Let me pass through your entire flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted sheep, every black ones among the lambs, spotted and speckled among the goats. Such shall be my wages.” That was the deal, “I’ll work for you, but I get to keep all these sheep that are spotted. Now Jacob goes to town and says, “How am I going to get those sheep to bear spotted offspring?” Verse 37, “Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plain trees and peeled white strips in them, exposing the white was in the road, he set the road which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the gutters, even in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. They mated and when they came to drink, so the flock mated by the rods and the flocks brought forth stripes, speckled and spotted.” What a scheme! “I’ll put spotted sticks in front of them and they’ll be looking at the sticks when they are mating, and then they’ll have spotted offspring.” Jacob was always trying to make things happen.
When Jacob wanted to leave 20 years later, look at Genesis 31:20, “Jacob deceived Laban by not telling him he was fleeing.” Working twenty years and he doesn’t even give three weeks notice; he just says “I’m leaving.” Always planning, always controlling, always maneuvering, always trying to have it his way, and his family was just like him. Genesis 39:19, “When Laban had gone to shear his flock, Rachel stole the household idols that were her father’s.” Why did she steal the household idols? It’s because, like her husband, she wanted the blessing, and that’s what she thought, it comes through the idols. So, she stole the blessing.
When he left, he had a great idea, but he still had one problem, Esau. “So, I know what I’ll do. Here’s how I’ll get around it.” Genesis 32:4, “Thus, you shall say to my Lord, Esau, ‘Thus says your servant, Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now. I have oxen and donkeys and flocks, male and female servants. I’ve sent to tell my Lord that I might find favor in your sight.’” “So, I’ve got to make up with him, and I’ve got all of this and I’m going to give it to him.” That blew up in his face, too, Genesis 32, “The messenger returned to Jacob saying, ‘We came to your brother, Esau. Furthermore, he’s coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.’ Jacob was greatly afraid, and distressed.” Everything Jacob tried to do in his own strength, he found out later that none of it worked, and while he was working his head off to be blessed, God kept letting him know that it was the Lord.
When he left Bethel, remember the promise, “I’m with you; I will keep you wherever you go; I’ll bring you back to this land; I will not leave until I’ve done what I’ve promised.” “Jacob, you’re leaving me but I’m not leaving you. I love you, and I’m going after you and I’m going to control and appoint your times, the boundaries of your habitation all the details.” He didn’t see it clearly at the time but looking back, Genesis 30:30, he’s talking now to Laban, ‘You had little before I came. It has increased to a multitude. The Lord has blessed you wherever I turned.” Now he sees it’s the Lord and not his work. And then even Laban recognized it in verse 27, “I divine the Lord has blessed me on your account.” They are starting to see the Lord.
Rachel’s pregnancy, was that because the Mandrakes were there and she could stare at that root that looked like a fetus? Genesis 30:22, “God remembered Rachel; God gave heed to her, and opened her womb.” It was the Lord; it wasn’t mandrakes. The livestock, the spotted cattle, how did He get them to be born that way? Genesis 31:9, “God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me.” “I thought it was me; I thought it was my superstition; I thought I did it.” Looking back, Jacob’s conclusion Genesis 31:5, “The God of my father has been with me.” “It’s not my God, yet, but the God of my father.”
Genesis 29:17, “Leah’s eyes were weak but Rachel was beautiful in form and face.” Leah’s eyes, maybe these eyes, were weak but as you go through the record of those twenty years, she saw more clearly than anybody else; she saw the Lord. It’s just amazing. When her firstborn Reuben was corn, she says, “The Lord has seen my affliction.” When her second son, Simeon was born, she said, “The Lord knew that I was unloved.” When her son, Judah, was born, she said, “This time I’m going to praise the Lord.” When Issachar was born, the Bible says that she had been praying, and God gave heed to her prayer. When Zebulon was born, she said, “God has given me this gift.” Leah was the only one who could see, and her eyes were not that good, but she was seeing with these eyes.
All through the Laban story God was there behind the scene, and Jacob was working his head off, and it was coming to nothing, and he’s becoming uneasy. Romans 2:4, “You think lightly of the riches and kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that His kindness leads to repentance.” All that was going on in his life and finally through his adversity and through his trouble and through his blessing, verse 35, “Jacob said to Laban, ‘Send me away.’ Then, I’ll go to my own place, to my own country.” “I can’t stand it anymore; I’ve got to get out of here.” It reminds me of Psalm 20:5, “Whoa is me; I sojourned in Mishak, I dwell among the tents of Kedir. Too long has my soul had its dwelling with those who hate peace. Isaiah 57:10, God says, “You were tired out by the life of the road, and you did not say it was hopeless. You found renewed strength. I’ve been trying to weaken you, and I’ve been trying to bring you to the end. You were tired out by the life you road, and then you mustered up strength and you got up and did it again. So, I had to work again to make you empty, to make you sore, to make you weary.” Psalm 137:4, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.” We can’t.
It was at this point when Jacob was dry and empty and unsatisfied, when the famine had taken root, when he was tired, when he was weary, something wonderful happened. God saw by appointing his times and the boundaries, and his heart is empty, and he says to Laban, “I’ve got to get out of here; I’ve got to leave; I’ve got to go. I can’t stand it anymore.” He had another vision. God came to him again. Listen to what He said, Genesis 31:13, “I’m the God of Bethel. Remember Me? Twenty years ago; I’m the God of Bethel where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to me. Arise now and leave this land and return to the land of your birth.”
Do you get the power of this? He’s working and it means nothing. He’s slaving and it means nothing. He thinks he’s doing it and then he finds out God did it, behind the scenes, working and touching circumstances. He’s not going to touch his will. He says, “Jacob, you’ve come to the end. Do you want to leave? I’ll tell you where you’ve got to go. You better come back to Bethel because it was there that you walked away from the reality. It was there that you walked away from Christ. It was there you saw God above, longing to bless, and you at the bottom needing to be blessed, and you could only be blessed through the ladder. Jacob, come on back.” That vision meant so much to Jacob because now he’s got an empty heart, he knows there has got to be more, and he starts in this journey back, five hundred miles. He’s going to learn again where Christ would bless through the ladder.
We come to the end of the twenty years; it’s not just a Bible story. God is calling us to reality, and I’m not judging anybody because I know my own heart, but if there is somebody whose saying, “Uh, this Christian life; there’s got to be more.” Why do you say that? It’s because you walked away from Jesus who is enough. That’s why you say there has got to be more. Why, all of a sudden after a couple of years do people say, “Uh, I have the Lord Jesus, but I need a second blessing, and I need another blessing.” Come on back to Bethel. Why are people running after, “This is not working. Maybe I need to pursue my spiritual gift and develop it,” and they start running after spiritual gifts. Why do they do that? It’s because they are empty and they know they are not full, and they are not satisfied. There’s got to be something else. “It’s not enough to just have Jesus alone, and I know the Bible says that we’re complete in Him, but I’m not complete; I’m empty. Why?” Come on back; God says, “I’ve arranged your times and I made you hungry. I want you to know that it’s not enough. I put that desire in you because nobody comes unless he’s drawn. I’ll draw everybody and I’ll draw everybody the same way. I will set up your circumstances, and I’ll make you rich or poor or empty or dry, and whatever it takes. I love you. Will you please come to the reality? I want to bless you. I have to bless you through the ladder. You’ll see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
May God help us! If this is a time of preparation in your life, then we get to the wrestling match, I hope you will do what Jacob did and prevail with God. Let’s pray.
Father, thank You for Your ways. Thank You that You have given us a will to choose, and You’ll invite us and entice us and make it attractive and ordain our times and the boundaries of our habitation. Right up to the end You’re going to call us. Lord, do for us what You did for Lydia and prepare our hearts to respond. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.