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Information. 2

Chapter 1 - The Agonies Of Abraham.. 3

Chapter 2 - The Life Journey Of Jacob. 12

Chapter 3 - The Jeopardy Of Joseph - Part 1. 21

Chapter 4 - The Jeopardy Of Joseph - Part 2. 29

Chapter 5 - The Maze Of Moses - Part 1. 38

Chapter 6 - The Maze Of Moses - Part 2. 47

Chapter 7 - The Exhaustion Of Elijah. 56

Chapter 8 - Jeremiah The Dejected. 64

Chapter 9 - The Dilemma Of Jonah. 73

Chapter 10 - Job's Enigma. 82

Chapter 11 - John The Baptist's Suffering Service. 92

Chapter 12 - The Pain Of Paul 102


David Legge studied at the Irish Baptist College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown Baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly. He now serves as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall, and resides in Belfast with his wife Barbara and their daughter Lydia.

The audio for this series is available free of charge either on our website (www.preachtheword.co.uk) or by request from info@preachtheword.co.uk

All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted. However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.

As Sparks Flying Upwards - Chapter 1

"The Agonies Of Abraham"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

Genesis 22

1.                   Sacrifice Your Isaac:

Letting go of what you love (verse 2)

2.                   Get Up That Mountain:

Obeying when you don't understand (verse 3)

3.                   Look For A Resurrection:

Trusting the God of the impossible (verse 5)

4.                   Don't Listen To Those Voices:

Believing in the midst of emotional turmoil (verse 7)

5.                   Wait For The Lamb's Intervention:

Depending on the God of Provision (verses 8-14)

Now we're starting a new study this evening, a group of character studies that I have entitled "As Sparks Flying Upward". We're looking first of all this evening at 'The Agonies of Abraham'. In Job chapter 5 and verse 7 we read the words: 'Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward'. That philosophical conclusion of Eliphaz, one of Job's friends or Job's comforters, came out of his witnessing the fiery crucible of trial that Job went through. As he was a witness of Job's pain, Job's temptation, Job's suffering, he said: 'Man', in general, 'is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward'. In fact, Job himself later on in the book, in chapter 14 and verse 1, says: 'Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and those days are full of trouble'.

Now you remember, and we studied it recently with our brother Tom Hayes, that Job was a man who was full of prosperity and also full of piety - two things that don't normally come together in this world and age in which we live. He was a prosperous man, a wealthy man, but he was also wealthy towards God, he was a holy man. As we read through that book we find that God tried his faith, and God allowed Satan to come into his life and to unleash the plagues of torment against him. As we read through the book we find that Job lost everything. He lost his children, he lost his home, his business, his friend's loyalty, his wife's confidence, and then finally he lost his health. He came to the conclusion at the end of it all that he wished that he had never been born, he cursed the day that he had been born.

If anybody knew about trouble, Job knew about it. Yet he developed such a faith in his God through his trials, that he could say: 'Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him'. In the same book that we find this phrase: 'Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward', 'Man's days are few, but his days are full of trouble', he can come to the realisation of faith to say: 'Though God slays me, I'm going to trust Him'. We find that there's a turning point within the book of Job, and at the end - the last chapter - we read: 'The Lord turned the captivity of Job'. He was blessed again, he was given health, he was given his friends back, he was given a beautiful family and abundance of riches. He lived another 140 years, we read, and he died being full of days.

The question is: what makes a man like that tick? How can that change come about from a man who has gone through the crucible of pain? It's not only Job, it's Abraham, Joseph, Elijah, Hannah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Paul the Apostle, and we could go on and on and on, and all of them are as sparks flying upward with all the troubles and persecution and problems that they have had in their lives. All of them equally came out of those troubles and problems better men and women because of them, but we need to ask the question tonight: why and how? We want to explore this phenomenon tonight, beginning with this man Abraham.

Let me give you a brief biography of this man's life. His life spans in record, from chapter 12 of the book of Genesis right through to chapter 24. In Acts chapter 7 and verse 2, when Stephen preaches one of the greatest sermons in the whole of the Bible, he alludes to the conversion of Abraham and he says these words: 'The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia'. If you like, that is the conversion of Abraham, his conversion. As you read his life story, we find out that he was born and raised in Ur, a city of the Chaldees. It was a seaport in Persia, the Persian Gulf, about 12 miles away from the traditional spot that scholars think the Garden of Eden was in. That city, the Ur of the Chaldees, the most conspicuous site and building within it was a large building that seemed to be modelled on the Tower of Babel. The city had two main temples, one was dedicated to the god Nannar the moon god, and the other to his wife Ningal. Abraham, as a young child, was brought up in that pagan atmosphere - and glory be to God, he was converted out of it, and he became eventually the father of faith.

His conversion, then as we go through Genesis we find his calling. After he was converted, and after God appeared to him in Ur of the Chaldees, God asked Abraham to leave Ur, to leave his father's house for a land that God would show him. Now I want you to see this: that when God called him to that promised land, God didn't tell him where to go or how to get there, He just told him to leave the Ur of the Chaldees and have faith and follow Him. Imagine going on a journey and not knowing where you're going!

His calling, then there is his commission that we find in Genesis chapter 12 and verses 2 and 3, and it's a sevenfold commission. God gave him some guarantees, He has converted him, He has called him, and now He's commissioning him. He says first: 'I will make of thee a great nation'; second, 'I will bless thee'; third, 'I will make thy name great'; fourth, 'Thou shalt be a blessing'; five, 'I will bless them that bless thee'; six, 'I will curse them that curse thee'; seven, 'In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed'. What a head start he had in life! God calling him! God wasn't calling anybody else at that time. Converted, commissioned with a sevenfold perfect promise, all the spiritual blessings that he had in God - but as you know and as I know, all the spiritual blessings in the world doesn't exempt or immune any of us from problems.

Because of that, as we read through his biography, we're enlightened not only to his conversion and his calling and his commission, but we then see his carnality. We find out that he lied about his wife Sarah to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh found her fanciable and he wanted to marry her - and all the plagues of God's judgement came upon Pharaoh and Egypt, and then he realised that this was not the sister of Abraham as Abraham had said, but his wife! That same sin, he followed it again in chapter 20 of Genesis. His carnality, and then later on we find his compromise, for God comes to him and promises him a son, that his children would be like the stars of the sky and like the sand of the seashore. God promised him, but he was getting old and then Sarah got past the age of childbearing, and he decided: 'I'm going to bring God's promise into fruition', and he listened to his wife's voice, he took Hagar, he slept with her, and he raised up a son by the flesh to his own name. Of course you know that was Ishmael, the turmoil of compromise caused by not waiting upon God's promise.

Eventually we find that in Abraham's wife, Isaac was born - a child of promise. Now this man had his fair share of agonies and we could spend all night looking at them, but I want to single out one in particular: the greatest agony of all. Not his conversion or his calling or his commission, not his carnality and not his compromise, but what I've called: 'His Calvary'. It's found in chapter 22, let's read it together: "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt", or a better word would be 'test', "Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen".

We read in verse 1: 'And it came to pass after these things, that God tested Abraham'. Now please remember, hopefully you know some of the story of Abraham's life, but his whole life so far has been leading up to this challenge of faith, this supreme test, the greatest test of all. Many times in Abraham's life, as we see through his compromise and his carnality, his faith failed him. But the beautiful thing of it all that I want you to see tonight: although his faith failed him, God never ever failed him. God never discarded him because of the failure of his faith, but rather God if you like persevered with Abraham - and eventually we read in the New Testament that Abraham becomes the father of faith. My friend, there is more about Abraham, you know, in the Old Testament then there is about the origin of the universe. God tells us more about this man than He does about where we come from and how we got here. The reason being is there's something supreme that God wants us to learn, and I believe it is this: in this life of faith, in this pilgrimage of Christianity, God is testing you and testing me.

We see in verse 1 that God called Abraham, He said: 'Abraham!' - and there are times, I believe, in our lives when God calls our name, when God calls us to be tested. Perhaps you're here tonight and God has called your name recently, maybe He's going to call your name soon. I don't know anything about you but, my friend, perhaps just like in the book of Job when God said to Satan: 'Hast thou considered my servant Job?', God is now saying to the grandstand of heaven and of hell: 'Have you considered my servant...whatever your name is...?'. Maybe they are directed at this moment, in heaven and in hell, to be spectators of your life. If not now, I would urge you tonight and right throughout this series, to get prepared here and now to keep these truths and ponder them in your heart like Mary for a future day, because you can be sure that if God's not calling your name now, there's a day coming very soon or at some time in your life when God is going to call: 'Abraham!'.

Don't become complacent because you're not going through trial at the moment - why? Because 'whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons'. My friend, listen: if you belong to Christ, if you're a child of God, you need to get prepared - not paranoid - but prepared for trial, be prepared for your name being called. Don't get fearful, because if we believe God's word we believe that all things work together for the good of them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose. We believe that all that we receive from the hand of God is for our good! What Abraham was tested in was for his good. If I could illustrate it like this: a mother gives medicine to her child, and the bottle holds the medicine, but it's not the bottle that gives the child the medicine, it is the mother that gives it the medicine. The mother is responsible, not the bottle - but no matter how full the bottle may be, no matter how full her cupboards may be of medicine, the mother will not allow the child to get one more drop of medicine unless she believes that it is good for the child. But see further the illustration: when she does believe it is good for her little darling, that very depth of her love will not only give the medicine, but will compel her to give it to the child for the child's own good - no matter how bitter that taste may be.

The problems around us are the bottle, but my friend it is your Father's hand that measures it out for you. It is your duty and my duty, as sons and daughters of God, when we hear the cry: 'Abraham!', to say: 'Here am I! I'm ready Lord! What have You got for me?'. I want us to learn tonight, I believe the Lord has given this message for us this evening, I want us to learn how Abraham coped in his agonies and how he came through them. The first thing that I believe we find is in verse 2 - sacrifice Isaac: 'Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of'. Sacrifice your Isaac, let go of the thing that you love.

Now I want you to picture the scene tonight, it's evening around the Oaks of Mamre, the hills are yellow, the sandy plains are a soft colour as the sun goes down and there's the cool breeze of the evening coming in. Abraham sits before his black tents and thinks and meditates and ponders about the goodness of God right throughout his life, from his conversion to his calling to his commission - even when he failed Him in his carnality and his compromise, how God's promise had stayed true. Can you see him looking to the heavens and trying to count the stars, and remembering that God's promise to him was that his lineage would be greater than the stars of heaven? Can you see him lifting up in his hands those grains, microscopic grains of sand, and watching them drift through his fingers and thinking: 'God is going to bring that promise to pass, and there will be a great nation that will bless all the world through my seed'?

Then out of the darkness and the twilight of the night there is a voice: 'Abraham, Abraham, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac. Take him to Mount Moriah; offer him there as a sacrifice unto me'. I imagine, friends, that for Abraham the stars fell out of heaven, the ground below him with the sand opened to swallow him - he couldn't believe that this, his son of promise, was to be taken away from him! We tend to think in our lives as Christians that we must sacrifice to God those things that are sinful, and that is correct - we've to lay aside every weight that doth so easily beset us. But what is confusing to Abraham here, and to us, is that God gave him Isaac, Isaac was from the hand of God in a miraculous way, to a barren womb. The turmoil in his mind and in his heart, the spiritual wrestling perhaps that he is going through, is to realise that God gave this son and now God wants to take him away again! Why?

Think about this for a moment: there is nothing more in the world that Abraham wanted than this son, Isaac. He was waiting day after day for the promise of God. They waited so long that Sarah laughed when she was told that she was going to have a son in her old age. But God continually, over and over again, gave them hope that it would happen. Can you see them? An old-aged couple, and all their energies and efforts were exhausted in this one glorious expectation that in their old age a miraculous child of promise would be born. Then the day came when she felt a kick in her womb, and the promise was given. God gave, but my friend can you imagine the shattering nature of this revelation to this man of God: why would God climb a mountain to give me, an old man of a hundred plus, a child and now He comes to take it away? Do you know why? I'll tell you why I believe why: God will be God, my friend, God had to be on the seat of Abraham's affections. Day after day he was looking after Isaac, waiting on the promise of Isaac, I can almost see him with worshipful eyes as he looks on that giant of a young man thinking of the promises of God, and thinking of the miracle of God in his life - but, my friend, God had to have that place! God must occupy the highest place in our hearts.

What am I saying? I'll tell you what I'm saying: there are good things in our lives, yes there are bad things that we need to get rid of - worries and things about our health that weigh us down when they don't even happen, worries about our welfare, what we will wear, what we will eat, what we will drink - but, my friends, there are good things in our lives, even God-given things, even godly things in themselves, but all of them, every single one of them must be given over to God! Why? Because God must occupy the chief place in every one of our hearts. He must be the delight of our eyes, He must be what we worship and what we serve. We must give everything that we have over to God. My friend, what am I saying? I'm saying this personally to you: you have children that are wayward, you have children that are not saved, you have children that are backslidden, can I ask you please to give them over to God? The problems that you're having in work, the problems that you're having in the family, perhaps even in the marriage, give them over to God! There is a danger that when we focus on these things or on these people, legitimate desires that they may be, that they occupy our focus, they saturate all our energy - even worrying about your own spirituality, worrying about leading people to Christ, many good things can take up our gaze, can become our god!

So God leads us to the place where He asks us all to sacrifice our Isaac, to let go of the thing that we love. My friend, listen: God wants every child of His to get to the place where everything in their life is consecrated to Him, sacrificed to Him. You might think I'm reading too much into this chapter, well please look at verse 12, the angel spoke to him and the voice out of heaven said: 'Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me'. Do you see it? But the best thing of all, friends tonight, is that when you can learn to let go of the thing you love, the thing you're worrying about, the child that is breaking your heart, the problems that are in your life that you're wrecking your brains to try and solve, when you let go of them the miracle of God's grace is this: He gives you back something far greater!

It's hard to let go, but when Abraham let go he received Isaac back. He got Isaac back, but not only did he get Isaac he got something far greater, because he passed God's test of faith and he had a greater walk with God and a greater faith in God, and God gave him all the things he wanted and many things more. Now notice: he learnt his lesson, he didn't get through the trial worrying about it, he didn't get through it scheming like he did in the past and thinking how he could plan something up to get a son. He gave Isaac to God! He let go of Isaac and God gave Isaac back, and gave him his faith mended and all! Oh, it's wonderful. What do I mean? Well, I'll put it in New Testament words, in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all of these things shall be added unto you'. Friend listen: God is a jealous God, and the good things and the bad things - give them to Him, and He'll give you them all back in abundance! Give Him your Isaac.

The second thing that I've been learning is in verse 3, where God says to him to get up, take his son, sacrifice him, and in verse 3 it says: 'Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son'. Early in the morning! He didn't waste any time. I don't know whether he wrestled through the night with it, but I'll tell you this: he got up early in the morning, and he did everything that was needed, he prepared. Now if you've been in the Christian life any length you will know that it's hard sometimes to obey God, especially when things don't seem to be right, when things don't make sense - but God is saying to you and saying to me and saying to Abraham: 'Get up that mountain! Obey Me even when you don't understand, when things don't make sense'. After God called him to the test, early in the morning, no time wasted, no thinking about it, no questioning God's sovereignty. From verse 3 right through the whole chapter until he actually comes to the Mount, you find him doing absolutely everything in preparation for sacrificing his own child. Now listen: he knew what God wanted him to do, he didn't know why perhaps, he didn't know how it was going to be done, he didn't understand what was actually going to happen when he got to the top of Mount Moriah, but he obeyed God!

I'll tell you: it's hard to obey God when you don't know what's going to happen. It's hard to obey God when you don't know the consequences of your actions, but I'll tell you this: it's hard to obey God when you do know what's going to happen, and to a large extent Abraham knew that that knife was going to come down into the heart of his son Isaac. God told him: 'Take your son, your only son, and go up and sacrifice him' - and yet Abraham, knowing and expecting that he was going to have to kill his son, went ahead and obeyed God! Here's the supreme point: he only thought he knew what was going to happen. He thought he knew what God was going to do, but he didn't - why? I'll tell you why, child suffering, going through pain, going through anxiety: God's thoughts are not your thoughts, His ways are not your ways:

'Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace.

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face'.

God told Abraham to do something, and then God didn't do the thing that He told him to do - He didn't let him! God told him to do one thing, yet God had something else planned and Abraham didn't know about it. Can you imagine if Abraham had sat up all night and waited to the next night to 12 o'clock till he obeyed God just to the very second, and reasoned about it and thought about it and discussed it with many people - it probably would have left him high and dry and he wouldn't have gone through with it. But what he chose to do was this: get up the mountain. My friend, get up the mountain whatever it is, and trust the Lord! Do God's will and let Him worry about the consequences! You see, when you let your Isaac go over to God it's His responsibility.

I often use this illustration to people privately. If you bought a car off me, and you were driving home in the car after exchanging money and there was a puncture, a blow out, the tyre just disappeared along the motorway. You came back to me the next day and you said: 'David, that car I bought from you, on the way home the tyre burst'. I would say: 'That's very nice, but you sort it out, that's your responsibility, it's now your car'. My friend, do you know this consecration doctrine that we believe as Christians: that when we give our lives over to God it's not for us to worry about. If I can say it reverently: 'Lord, it's Your responsibility, You sort it out!'. That's when you can obey God, even when you don't understand.

What mountain are you afraid to climb tonight? What hill is too high? I tell you, Jesus says: 'If you had but faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, that mountain wouldn't even need to be climbed, because it would be totally removed'! You could pray tonight like Joshua: 'Lord, give me this mountain', and God would reply to you, 'The mountain shall be thine'. Why do these mountains get in our way when we have a God who treads the mountains underfoot? Do you see it? Get up that mountain! Obey God even when you don't understand.

So Abraham took his son, he gave him over to God mentally and spiritually, and then he climbed the mountain. Verse 5 tells us something very precious: 'Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you'. Do you see that? 'I and the lad will go yonder, and we', literally in the Hebrew 'we', ' will come again unto you'. Abraham had faith to look for a resurrection, he was trusting the God of the impossible. Now if you don't know this already as a child of God, the Christian life is one of faith. So many times in the Bible we read these words: 'The just shall live by faith'. Can I say that this is not some obscure eccentric life that some itinerant evangelist, or some ancient missionary lives, or is exclusive to a man called George Mueller. This is the Christian life! It is for all men, for without faith it is impossible to please God.

What was the secret of Abraham's overcoming in this test? What was the secret of his sacrificing Isaac, and getting up that mountain, and looking for a miraculous resurrection, believing that both he and the lad - after the sacrifice - would come down again to the servants? Turn with me to Hebrews 11 verse 17, the great chapter of faith, and we read: 'By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure'. Do you see it? He went up the mountain believing that God could raise Isaac from the dead if he had to kill him. God could bring him back to life!

You say: 'Well, I believe God, but wait till I tell you something: I couldn't believe that! I couldn't go that far to believe something miraculous like that'. Can I ask you a question tonight: what did Abraham have that you don't? What did this great man of God have that you don't have? It says in Hebrews 11 verse 17 that he counted the promise of God worthy, he believed what God had said to him, that in his seed Isaac would all the nations be blessed - all that Abraham had was the word of the Living God! Let me tell you this: he didn't have any promises that Isaac would be resurrected, he didn't have one promise in that vein - but what he was told, that in Isaac his seed would be blessed, that's all he needed. He didn't know how God was going to do it, he didn't know even why God was going to do it, but he knew that he could stand upon God's word! Can I ask you, child tonight, what more do you need? What more do we need? Is God's word enough for us?

Wait till I tell you this: he didn't have the promises of the New Testament disciple of Jesus Christ to rest upon. He didn't have the promises that you have, he was given one promise and he held onto that promise right throughout into his old age. Now, as he's climbing a mountain as an old man, having to stop for his breaths, he realises that before that knife plunges - or even after it - God would be a God who would honour His promise. Yet God says to you: 'Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a new work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ'. God says to you: 'Nothing shall be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord'. God says to you: 'Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?'. He says to you: 'Now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly more than you ask or think'. He says to you: 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'. What more do we need?

That should encourage you and me to look for a resurrection in our lives, should it not? To trust in the God of the impossible? Then fourthly in verse 7 we find that as he's mounting this great hill, Isaac speaks to him and says: 'My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?'. Now we've dealt with the voice of reason, we've dealt with how perhaps Abraham couldn't make sense and couldn't understand any of this. That's the voice of reason, but this here in verse 7 is the voice of emotion. Can you imagine? I'll tell you this, there's no greater enemy to the life of faith than the voice of emotion. Would the voice of his young son lifting up his head and crying to his father, questioning perhaps his father's apparent hostile actions, would that not be enough to make the old man of God turn on his heels and go down the mountain again?

The Lord says: 'If you being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children' - and Abraham was a righteous man, yet hearing this in his own ears he didn't turn back! He was a man of like passions like you and like me, do you not think that he wondered what his son would think - that his father was willing to go up that mountain and sacrifice him to God? Do not think it crossed his mind and heart: 'What would Sarah say if she knew, and what's she going to say when I get home?'? Do you not think the memories of the little lad years ago as a child flooded through his whole being, drowning his obedience and the voice of God? Do you not think he thought of the possible ability in the future that that young lad could have, the prospects and the promise? All those things were worthy to make him turn and renege on his faith. I'll tell you this: if the devil can use emotion in your life and mine to not believe God and to turn back, you better believe he'll do it. To rob the rest of the peace of God from us, he'll do it. Can I urge you tonight, whatever you're feeling, whatever's in your heart, believe God in the midst of emotion!

We live on facts, facts in the word of God, we put faith in those facts of the word of God, and then the feelings may or may not come. If they come that's tremendous, but we don't live by them. Whatever you are feeling, what is important in your Christian life is this: your will and willing to believe, willing to trust God, willing to follow Him. Do you remember Daniel in the den of lions? Do you know what it says of him? 'Then the king commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him', why? 'Because he believed in God'. What emotions do you think would be going through your mind and heart in a den of lions? But he wasn't hurt because he believed in God.

Fifthly: wait for the lamb's intervention - depending on the God of providence. You know, it was only in the supreme test of Abraham's life that God revealed Himself to him as Jehovah-Jireh. It wasn't until his back was against the wall that God showed him that He was God My Provider - I prefer the translation: 'He will see to it', Jehovah-He Will See To It. Verse 7, he believed that God was able to provide a lamb, God would provide for Himself a lamb. In verse 13 he hears the bleating of that ram caught in a thicket by its horns, and he took the ram and he sacrificed it. Can I say this to you: God always intervenes in a life that is filled with faith. The Lamb always intervenes! He may not answer the way you think He will, or wish He would. I think Abraham - and I hope you agree with me - was expecting that he would have to kill the child, and then God would miraculously have to bring him back to life again. But you see Abraham's faith was not in the way that God would answer him, but in the fact that God would answer him. One way or another God's word would come true.

Do we depend on the provision of God? Oh, it's so hard isn't it? In an affluent society in which we live in today, where we think we have need of nothing, where many who have many things don't even recognise that they receive them from the Father of lights. Do we depend upon God? If you're poor tonight, bless the Lord that you're poor - there's a blessedness in poverty, because it's easier to recognise Jehovah-Jireh in your poverty than it is when you're a millionaire. My friend, what is it to have these promises? Come on: my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. There's so much I could say on this passage, but let me say this: it's important in all of our studies throughout these weeks to see not Abraham, not Job, not Joseph, not Hannah, not John the Baptist, not Paul the Apostle, but to see Jehovah-Jireh, and to see the Lord Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith. What a blessing to know that as with Abraham and Israel, listen to this, in your afflictions He is afflicted; to know as they knew then, what we know now in the New Testament, that we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was tested in all points like as we are, apart from sin.

Quickly, let me take you down each of these points. The first: sacrifice your Isaac, letting go of the one that you love. If you look at verse 4 of our chapter you see this: 'Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off'. My friend, I couldn't help thinking that the Father, before the foundation of the world, looked and saw the place called Calvary afar off! And even there He was willing to let go of the One that He loved, for God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Think of this: Abraham believed that the child would be given back to him, and for the joy that was set before Christ He endured the cross, despising the shame! Do you see it? Do you see the obedience in Gethsemane? Him, 'Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered'. Can you see Him there in Gethsemane? Do you see Him on dark Calvary? 'My God, my God, why? Why art Thou so far from helping me in the words of my roaring?'. He understood why, but it was the cry of a Son to a Father in emotion.

Do you see Him declared to be the Son of God in power in His resurrection? We know that if we have the fellowship with His sufferings, we will know the power of His resurrection. Do you see fifthly, that He is the Lamb who intervenes, the Lamb who is able, the Lamb who is the provider - 'For all', He says, 'that the Father giveth me, they will come to me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day'. Can you see the Baptist standing: 'Behold! The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world'?

I've been truly blessed, but I hope that you realise through our study tonight:

'If called, like Abraham's child, to climb

Some hill of sacrifice,

Some angel may be there in time,

And deliverance shall rise'.

God will provide a lamb.

Father, if we are honest with ourselves a great deal of the time we know nothing, but we know one thing: nothing shall separate us from love of God in Christ Jesus. Father, thrill us tonight with Thy provision, with Thy goodness, and with Thy grace which is to us-ward. Lord, let us be lost in the wonder of it all. Father, we pray - there are those in our gathering tonight, and they need a touch from Thee, they need lifted out of the emotional turmoil that they are falling into - we pray that we all may give to Thee our Isaac, that we may realise that if we give it to Thee we will be given back tenfold and more. Lord, that we may all know these wonderful words to be our portion: 'And it came to pass'. Jehovah-Jireh, we thank Thee, for Christ's sake. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - February 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

As Sparks Flying Upwards - Chapter 2

"The Life Journey Of Jacob"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

Genesis 32-50

1.       A Twisted Youth (25:27-34; 27:6-29)

2.       A Testing Marriage (29:1-30)

3.       A Triumphant Wrestler (32:24-3)

4.       A Troubled Parent (34; 35:22; 38)

5.       A Tragic Mourner (35:16-20; 37:31-35)

Now we're turning to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 32. Now the whole life story of Jacob really straddles over the majority of the book, at least half of the book of Genesis - from chapter 25 through to chapter 50. We haven't got time, and I don't think you have the energy, to sit and listen to all that tonight. Let me just say also: this is a series on 'Sparks Flying Upward', what we're doing is not specifically character studies of these Bible individuals, but we're wanting to home in specifically on the problems and the trials that these men and even women faced. So we're not doing a categorical biography of these people, but we're wanting to home in on specific events in their life that teach us how to survive ourselves, as the saints of God, as we go through trouble.

Last week we looked at Abraham, and we saw that the greatest test of all was in Genesis chapter 22, when he was asked by God to sacrifice his son, his one and only son, Isaac. If you like, this is the greatest test of all in Jacob's life, and we're homing in on that this evening in chapter 32 this time, and verse 25. We'll start at verse 24: "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank".

As we go through this great book of beginnings, the book of Genesis, we find that Jacob became the father of the Jews, that great ethnic people, that great religious movement in our world even today that has never been quenched or destroyed, even by all the tyrants of the world trying and baying for their blood to wipe them out and exterminate them. Jacob is their father, the father of the Jews, but as we look at the Jews and we look at Jacob tonight we see that there are a great deal of parallels with the Jew and with their father Jacob. The extremes in the life of the Israelites that we find in the Old Testament Scriptures that startle us and offend us and make us balk at this people, can also be seen in life of their father Jacob. Yet to the other extreme, not only do we see the failure of the Jewish people in life of Jacob, but we also see their spirituality. We can see the richness in their faith, the deepness in their devotion toward God - both extremes in the Jewish people are mirrored in their father Jacob.

Like the Jew, Jacob spends a great deal of his life in exile, having no home, wandering around the desert. He experiences trying conditions; his life is full of toils, sorrows, tribulation and trial. But we also see in the Jew and in Jacob the discipline of God, how - although they are going through turmoil and trial, and sorrow and testing and tribulation - God's hand is behind it all. We have seen that very vividly in the studies of the book of Ezekiel recently, how - even though at times it seems that God has cast His ancient people, Israel, off - He has not, because He is bound in covenant with them. What He is doing is not seeking to destroy them, but disciplining His own people. God is bringing them through trial and tribulation for the sole purpose to purify them as a holy and sanctified and zealous people unto His own testimony and glory.

We can see all those things in the life of this father of the Jews, Jacob. But there are not just parallels with Jacob's physical ancestors, Jacob's physical offspring, but we can see also parallels in Jacob's spiritual offspring. What I'm talking about is the whole household of faith, those who believe in God today - if you like, the church of Jesus Christ - there are many parallels that we even can take out of Jacob's life and apply them to our own life tonight. We're looking at the life journey of Jacob, but we equally can be looking at our own life journey, for what Jacob faced every day of his life we, as the children of God today, also face. I think this cannot be put better than the words of F. B. Meyer, listen to what he says about the parallels between Jacob and ourselves as we begin this study tonight: 'Jacob's failings speak to us. He takes advantage of his brother when hard-pressed with hunger. He deceives his father. He meets Laban's guile with guile. He thinks to buy himself out of his troubles with Esau. He is mean, crafty and weak. At times we can apply all these terms to him, but who is there among us who does not feel the germs of this harvest to be within our own breast? Who of us cannot say, when we look at Jacob, there but for the grace of God go I?'. His failings, then there are his aspirations, they speak to us. F. B. Meyer says: 'We too have our angel-haunted dreams. We make our vows when we leave home. We too cling in a paradox to the yearning of departing angels, that they should come and stay with us and bless us before they go. We too get back to our own Bethels and bury our idols. We too confess ourselves pilgrims and strangers on the earth. We too recognise the shepherd care of Almighty God. We too wait for God's salvation'.

My friends, I hope we can see already that in many ways Jacob's life journey is not only the journey of the Jews, but it's the journey of every child of God and is our journey tonight. Let's look at it. The first thing that we see is a twisted youth. If you turn with me to chapter 25 of the book of Genesis, the first part of the twisted youth of Jacob is the devising brother that we find in chapter 25. From the birth of Jacob and Esau you could see this obvious rivalry among these two twin brothers. In fact, the very reason that Jacob is called Jacob - and Jacob simply means 'grabber' - is the fact that as these two boys were coming out of the womb, Jacob was born with his hand on Esau's heel, and so he was called 'Grabber'. Right from the very beginning these two children were fighting in their mother's womb, and as they're coming out of that womb, there is Jacob holding onto the heel of Esau. But we see this rivalry coming to fruition here in chapter 25 of Genesis, where we see Jacob as a devising brother.

You know the story I hope, we'll not take time to read it, about how Esau gives up his birthright for a pot of porridge, or a pot of stew, or lentil soup if you like. He gives up his birthright. Now don't misunderstand what this means, for Esau to give up his birthright. We think of this birthright in terms of earthly prosperity, worldly goods and wealth of his father - and to a large extent that's what it was, because the son who was blessed, and Esau was to be blessed, that son would be blessed with a double portion of his father's goods. But the inheritance and the birthright is much more than earthly possessions and worldly wealth, but it is spiritual prosperity. It was speaking of the spiritual blessing of being the next patriarch in line; the one who would be the head spiritually of the tribe, the family and the clan; the one who would be the priest and come before God for his family and for his tribe. Ultimately in the Old Testament, especially in the book of Genesis, to be the one who received the birthright and the spiritual blessing and inheritance, was to ultimately be a link in the chain that would bring Messiah! You see the importance of that, all the earthly and worldly wealth pales into insignificance.

Now if you can imagine this scene in chapter 25 for one moment. One day Jacob is standing over a cauldron of stew made with red lentils, that you can still get in Syria or Egypt today. There he is making this stew, and who should tumble into the tent but Esau from the fields after a hard day's work. He's faint and he's hungry, and he cries out in impatience and desperation: 'Give me some of that!'. Jacob, at that moment, realises his opportunity. He realises, 'This man really needs something to eat, but there's something that I really need, something that is not coming to me, something that I am not going to receive unless I do something about it'. So he decides to blackmail Esau to become the spiritual leader of his tribe, his family and his clan. Now obviously Jacob only did this because he knew it would work with Esau, he wouldn't have tried it if he thought he wouldn't get away with it, but obviously Jacob realised from growing up with this young man that Esau had no wealth and value and respect in his birthright. He couldn't have respected it enough to give it away for a mere bowl of lentil soup!

That begs the question to us tonight - and we must look into ourselves this evening before we condemn this man Esau - because there are spiritual privileges and honours and talents that we have as the children of God today, and some of us are willing to exchange them for a brief sensual experience that fills the animal appetite in our heart for just one moment. Is that not what the writer to the Hebrews says in chapter 12? 'Look diligently...lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright'. One thing that we learn from Esau is that he despised his birthright. So Jacob's desire, if you like, was a good desire, it was a right desire - but the point that you need to see in chapter 25 of Genesis is that, although Jacob's desire was right, the way he went about it was wrong. The means did not justify the end. Yes, Esau was not interested in a double portion of his father's estate; yes, Esau was not interested in the spiritual birthright, the spiritual heritage, being patriarch and priest before God; yes, he wasn't even interested in providing for his mother, which fell to the one whom the blessing of inheritance fell to. Perhaps it was because he could see through to the fact that Jacob was his mother's favourite, and he didn't honour his mother - but whatever it was, Esau despised his birthright, Jacob wanted the birthright, but you've got to see this tonight: Jacob went about a right thing a wrong way.

He had a twisted youth, and the first occasion is devising to take the birthright away from his brother. What Jacob was going to have to learn in the days that would lie ahead in his life was that there are no shortcuts to God's blessing. His twisted youth is marked as a devising brother, and the second thing is in chapter 27 if you turn over to it. This twisted youth can be seen as he forms into a deceitful son - chapter 27 and verses 6 through to 29. Now you know, and I know, that youth is a time of grave temptation. But the strange thing about Jacob's temptation in chapter 27 is that it comes from his mother. He was Mummy's favourite, and one day she overheard Isaac, the old man, the father of Jacob and Esau, planning to bestow his blessing, his spiritual inheritance, his double portion on Esau and not Jacob. Because Jacob was her favourite she plotted that she would make sure that Jacob would receive the blessing, and so she called to Jacob - now note in the passage, verse 13, she had to call twice. My friends, when you're in youth, there are times that temptation can come the first time, and then temptation can come the second time - you're maybe able to resist it the first time, but the second time the call comes you fall, and the amazing thing about this is: the call came from his own mother!

'Go out and fetch two kids, bring them in. We'll sacrifice them, we'll feed them to your father, and with the skins from the kids you can wear them and you can pretend that you're Esau'. Because Jacob had a weak and a twisted nature within himself he responded, and he dressed up himself as his own brother, and he even imitated Esau's smell of the fields. He went into his old father's tent, who was blind by now, and he said to Isaac: 'I am Esau thy firstborn', verse 32. The tragic thing about it all is this: he even used the name of the Lord in vain. Isaac didn't recognise his voice, he probably thought: 'That sounds more like Jacob than Esau'. He said to him: 'How is it that you found the venison, the food, so quickly?'. And here he takes the Lord's name in vain, he says: 'The Lord thy God brought it to me'! Do you see how twisted he's getting? It was getting dangerous, so Isaac had to feel him to see if he was hairy like Esau was, he had to smell him to see if he smelt of the fields like Esau did, and when he was content then Jacob got the blessing. He got what he wanted - OK, Esau didn't want it, Jacob wanted it, maybe Jacob was seeking after God, but he went about it the wrong way!

My friends, this has thrilled me today. This young man had a twisted youth, he was a devising brother, he was a deceitful son, and what a thrill for us tonight to look at this man's life and to think that it was this same young man that grew up to be what the Spirit of God calls 'A prince with God' and the father of the nation of Israel! It's hard to imagine when we read this about him in his early days. It's hard to understand how God could bless such jiggery-pokery in this young man's life. You might think to yourself: 'Well, if it was God's will that Jacob should have the blessing and not Esau, surely the only way that that could come about - if Isaac was going to give Esau the blessing - is that it would happen dishonestly, that it would happen the way it's written here?'. My friend, I can't explain it all, but what I can say is this: Jacob was to get the blessing in God's eyes, but Jacob didn't go about it the way that God would have wanted him to. But I'll tell you something that can categorise and summarise the whole thing: God, in His sovereignty and His almighty nature, can make even the wrath of man to praise Him. Isn't that wonderful? What Jacob meant for evil, God meant for good.

Further, what came to me today as I was studying this, and what a blessing it was to my own heart when I thought back to the sins of my own youth! You've got them, haven't you? The things that jump out of the cupboard of your mind, those skeletons, those ghosts that haunt you at times when you're not expecting it. You're having holy thoughts and holy exercises, and all of a sudden you're reminded about something that you did in your youth, when you were foolish, when you were twisting, when you were devising and deceitful. But what a thought tonight: old Job, he thought God was cursing him for the sins of his youth, did you know that? In chapter 13 of the book, verse 26, he says: 'God, thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth' - 'You're punishing me for what I've done in the past'. How refreshing it is, even though it's only Eliphaz that says it in chapter 33 of the book, to read these words of the man who repents of his sin: 'His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth'. What hope there is in our God! No matter how twisted your youth was, deceitful and devising, what a joy to know that our God is the God who can restore not only the years that the locusts have eaten, but the youth that the locusts have eaten!

It's wonderful, I would encourage you tonight young people: don't squander your youth because you know that God can forgive you. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Of course we shall not. Solomon says in his wise words in Ecclesiastes 12: 'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth' - but what a joy if you're looking back tonight, and there's no hope because you've squandered your youth, you've messed it up in sin and temptation, you've drowned it in the iniquity of a twisted childhood, what a joy that you can say like the Psalmist in Psalm 25: 'Lord, remember not the sins of my youth' - and the answer comes back from the excellent glory: 'Thy sins and thy iniquities I will remember no more'. Don't let the devil drag them up to you ever again! They're under the blood, they're gone, they're finished, they're dead with Christ, buried with Christ, and your new life has risen with Christ! What a joy that is to all of us who did things in our youth that we wish we had never done.

You folk here tonight, and your children are breaking your hearts, your children are drowning themselves in the sin of their own twisted youth, can I encourage you tonight? Have faith in God, for some of the greatest giants of the Bible did exactly the same as your wee boy or your wee girl is doing tonight - and look where they are today! Some of them are in Hebrews 11 in the hall of faith, God's hall of fame. Have faith in God.

As you can imagine Esau didn't like this. Jacob had tricked him and done him out of his inheritance, and he vowed revenge - to kill his brother, to hunt him down like a dog. Rebecca, in her tent, overhears what Esau is saying in revenge, and she fears for her only beloved son Jacob. So she tells Jacob: 'You're going to have to go to my brother Laban in Haran. Go away, pack your bags tonight and escape'. What was happening here was Jacob was beginning to enter into God's school of learning, Jacob was beginning to realise how you can't have blessing by being a twister, by being a grabber and a supplanter and a thief. You're going to have to learn it God's way if you're going to be truly blessed.

We find as we go through the life of this man that Jacob, if anybody in the Bible, Jacob learns through suffering. Can you see him packing his bags, kissing his mother goodbye? Can you see him scuttering into his father's tent to get his blessing and his goodbye? Can you see him going out in the night, going across the desert? I'm sure at first it was exciting for him, there was a buzz of adventure, it was the first time he had ever been away from home - but I'm also sure that as he went mile upon mile on his own, he started to get lonely, his time away from home wasn't as good as what he thought it would be. He began to feel melancholy and depression - now the dark clouds had drawn across his blue sky. He had got the blessing, but there he was in loneliness. He was running away in fear, perhaps all the thoughts were going through his mind: 'What has Esau thought up for me? Is he going to send the dogs out after me? Is he going to send an army of his workmen out to hunt me down?'. He had no roof over his head, he had no bed, he had no pillow. Tired and dejected he reaches Bethel, and he gets an old rock and puts his head upon it. He looks into the stars and he falls asleep, and I want you to see this tonight: the very place that Jacob was in, the place where God had led him, was the only place that God could bless him.

When he went unconscious to the world around him and to all of his troubles, God gave him a dream and God gave him a vision. He saw a ladder coming down from God from heaven, and the angels ascending and descending on it. Child of God, this was the only place that God could speak to Jacob. When God leads men and women He leads us to certain places that are not comfortable, that do not feel good, that even do not feel right, but there are times in our lives when that is the only place that God will speak and that is where God has chosen to speak. 'The Lord is my helper', that's what matters. Everyone was against him, his own family was against him and he was out as a stranger going to his kith and kin - Laban in Haran - but, my friend, I want you to see what God was showing this young man has he had his head upon the pillow: He was showing him that God was there, and that in his turmoil he had a link with God. It might have been a ladder that he couldn't climb, or he wasn't near even the top, but God was showing him: 'Look, I'm there, I'm there for you! In this wilderness of your experience, you are connected to Me by covenant and by grace'.

The word of God tells us that God's angels are ministering spirits, they carry out His will. We read in the book of Daniel that, as Daniel was praying for 21 days, it was the archangel Michael who was coming to answer Daniel's prayers. I firmly believe upon the authority of those Scriptures that sometimes angels carry out God's will in answer to our prayers. I believe what God was showing Jacob was this: 'If you'll let the prayers go up, I'll let the blessings come down!'. If that wasn't enough for him to hear, he heard God's word, he heard the voice of God say - and this is what God said to him in that dream: 'I will be with thee, I will keep thee, I will do that which I have spoken to thee of'. What a God of grace He is, eh! This old twister, bathing his youth in sin, devising against his brother, deceiving his own father, out in a wilderness of sin - yet the God of grace appears unto him! We've all had our Bethel, haven't we? Praise God, we've had our Bethel!

He eventually reaches a well, and he meets a girl he likes. He sees Rachel, they introduce one another, they find out that they're related, they're cousins - in fact this is the daughter of Laban who he's trying to get to and stay with. He falls in love with this girl Rachel, and as he reaches Laban's house Laban agrees that he'll give Rachel to Jacob after seven years working for him in his business. It's very interesting that what goes around comes around. That's not a Biblical quotation, but it's very true. Crafty old Laban deceived Jacob as he had been deceiving others all down the years. Just on the day of the marriage between Rachel and Jacob, Laban substitutes Rachel with Leah, and old twisted Jacob finds out after the marriage vows that he's married the wrong girl! Now the deceiver is deceived! He's furious, he goes to Laban, Laban says: 'Well, if you work another seven years for me then I'll give you Rachel to marry'.

There are many lessons that we can learn from this. Young people, one of the lessons that we can learn is: when you're looking for a partner in life, a husband or a wife, it's got to be true love. I know there were some arranged marriages in the Bible, but the best ones that I can see were true love. The first thing that we read is that as Jacob was going out to Laban, leaving his father Isaac when he was blessing him in chapter 28 verse 1, he blessed him it says: 'And charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan'. Now listen, young person, you're not to go to the world for a wife, you're not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. There you have it in black-and-white in the Old Testament, and you have it again in the New Testament, the best person to love is a child of God for they love Christ.

The second thing we learn is that it helps when both homes are happy with the partner that you choose. Now that doesn't always happen, but I can tell you this it was good in this instance. In verse 20 we find that Jacob served seven years for Rachel, chapter 29 I beg your pardon, chapter 29 and verse 20: 'Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her'. That's one of the most beautiful verses in the whole of the Bible, they seemed but a few days for the love that he had for her. One writer said: 'Love has the power of making a rough road easy and a long wait short'. Young people, you've got to love one another, and you've got to love the Lord to be married - but look at this: he worked seven years for Leah! He was deceived, and he worked as asked to work another seven years for Rachel - the point is this: he was willing to do it! You can fall in love and have the greatest romance, love at first sight if that even exists, you can have all that, you can have both families enjoying the partner that you have chosen, but whether you like it or not it's got to be worked at! It's got to be worked at. If you're not prepared to work at it, don't enter into it! If you truly love your partner you'll stick with them.

Now we know all too well, to our own detriment, that it doesn't always work out for some. It takes two to tango, it takes two to work at it, doesn't it? Maybe one partner doesn't want to work at it, and some people like Jacob have been gravely deceived, and if you can put it like this: the person that they thought they were marrying turned out to be different from the person they actually married! He thought he was marrying Rachel, it turned out to be Leah, and he was disappointed - there are so many people that are disappointed, so many people suffering, and what a test it is for a child of God to be married to a monster. Do you know something? No matter what end some marriages come to, I'm no judge and jury but I'll tell you this: for many a man or a woman, they are in God's school of suffering even in their marriage! Many a Christian quietly goes through a turbulent time in a testing marriage.

Then we move on and we find that God leads him through that hardship of working at love, and he comes thirdly again to chapter 32 that we read together at the beginning of our meeting. I think that this is the pinnacle of Jacob's life of faith, because he comes to the point where he becomes a triumphant wrestler. Up to now he had got most things in his life by stealing them or supplanting them, just as his name means. He has deceived people into taking their birthright, he has deceived people into taking inheritance, he has been clutching and supplanting and twisting to get the blessing of God, but God was going to tell him in chapter 32: 'It is impossible to get my true blessing by wriggling into it, it's not taken by guile but it's taken by grace'. Jacob becomes, in chapter 32, the man who God had to break in order to bless.

This is the turning point in his life, and I want you to see five things under this heading. First: his position in verse 24, his position. It says that Jacob was left alone. Now, my friends tonight, the way of blessing is often a hard road, it's often a lonely road. Great men of God and women of God have had to walk a lonely path of pain at times, lonely early in the morning in prayer, alone in their zeal when the children of God around them had no concern and only indifference, the lonely doctrinal stand for the truth. Whatever it may be, it might be a lonely suffering on your own with no-one to cry upon, but it is only those who God can seek to detach from the world that are detached enough for them to lay hold upon God and for God to lay hold upon them. My friends tonight, I say to you if you're suffering: let us go therefore unto him who is without the camp, bearing his reproach. Let us follow John the Baptist, let us follow Elijah, let us follow our Lord Jesus Christ who suffered lonely there on lonely Golgotha's Hill, but He was there!

His position was alone. Secondly we see his prayer. There are three things about his prayer, first his posture in verse 24: he wrestled. The Lord Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: 'Strive to enter into the kingdom, strive to go through the narrow door'. We read of the Lord in Luke 22, being in agony in Gethsemane, He prayed in agony. Ephesians 6, Paul says: 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers'. Hebrews 5 talks about the Lord praying in Gethsemane: 'Who with prayers, with strong crying and tears, cried unto God who was able to save him from death'. I don't know what you're going through tonight, but if you're going through pain I'm sure there are times that you've cried unto God, you've wrestled in God's presence in prayer. But see how his prayer turned out in verse 25, it came to the breaking of the day, he wrestled all night, his prayer was prevailing. I want you to see tonight that in our wrestling with pain and trial and tribulation, God is putting us through these things so that He can see whether we are trusting Him, whether we are hoping in Him alone.

It's very interesting that we see in verse 25, I believe that this was Christophany, an appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ before He was manifest in flesh at Bethlehem, I believe it was Him who was wrestling with Jacob. As He was wrestling, it says in verse 25, when He saw that He prevailed not against him - now that doesn't mean that He couldn't beat him, but when He saw that Jacob was so intense and that he was determined to prevail with God as he wrestled Him, it was then that He touched his leg. Child of God going through pain tonight, listen: pain persevered will always bring forth blessing, always. You can see it in the natural realm, in childbirth and the travail of it, and then a beautiful baby is born. You can see it with the painstaking efforts of an artist, and the picture is painted. You can see it in the farmer toiling and sowing in the field week after week, month after month, but eventually there's a great harvest reaped. You can see it with the composer with all the little notes, and scrapes and thoughts that he has to conjure up, but at the end there's a great symphony of beautiful music that comes into fruition from his hard work. God says to you, child going through turmoil tonight, 'The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Why art thou downcast, O my soul? Hope thou in God, for thou shall yet praise Him'.

He was prevailing and he was persistent, for in verse 26 he said: 'I'm not going to let you go until you bless me'. Oh, there's so much negativism about in Christianity today! Can I encourage you: in your pain and in your trials, in your torment - be positive, hang in there! Have faith in God and be a prevailer and not a pessimist, and trust Him!

There was his position: alone; his prayer; and then there was his pain, for the Lord Jesus touched his thigh and it went out of joint. I believe that speaks to us of brokenness, I believe the Lord is saying: 'If I've got to bless you, Jacob, I've got to break you'. The path to blessing is brokenness, and how you get through your pain, and how you get through your trial and your sickness and your sorrow, is determined and depends upon how you look at it! That's the bottom line. If you say: 'My life's out of control, this shouldn't have happened to me. Why is God allowing this to happen? God mustn't love me at all if He's allowing this to come into my life!'. If you look at it like that, you'll never prevail and you'll never have blessings out of your sorrow, but if you look at the thing and say: 'This is the hand of God, I don't understand it but I know that God's hand has planned it and I will trust His hand! He's allowing this for my good, He will turn what seeks to harm me into my everlasting joy!'.

You know, the things that we often resist coming into our life - in fact, I would say everything that comes into our life - is allowed by God. It mightn't be God's hand doing it, it might be like Job, it's Satan but it is allowed by the sovereign councils and will of God. My friend, look at it like that! Jacob was never the same again after he was broken, after he was touched and became out of joint. Look at verse 31, it says from that day on he halted upon his thigh, he had a limp and men could see that the self in Jacob had been broken and weakened. Others could see that he had a touch from God, and we read in the book of Hebrews that at the end of his days he was leaning upon his staff worshipping God - broken, but God broke him to bless him! God put His signature on him by breaking him. One writer says: 'The sinew of self must shrink'. I'm led to believe that two horses pulling together cannot pull a sinew apart, and sometimes there are things in our lives that cannot be broken by any other measure than by pain and suffering. Let me tell you that meeting with God on this level, like Jacob, it doesn't just affect your opinions and your doctrines, it changes who you are - and God said: 'You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel', and he was changed!

In verse 32 we see that the change not only affected him personally and his name, but it affected the whole nation, for from that day on until this book of Genesis was written they never ate of the sinew of an animal. It affected a whole generation for God, one man's brokenness and the testimony of God through it! I'll tell you this: old Jacob was sensitive to the touch of God every day after that day. Then there's his power in verse 28, God told him: 'You've power with God and with men'. He knew his God, he had got to know his God, like David who was a man after God's own heart, like Abraham last week who was called the friend of God, and listen tonight - you who are going through trial - they got to know their God in the crucible of pain! That is what Paul meant when he said: 'That I might know Him, and the power of His resurrection', don't stop there, 'and the fellowship of His sufferings' - and if you don't have the fellowship of suffering you'll not be made conformable to His image!

Then there was his prize: Peniel, in verse 29 - 'For I have seen God face to face'. Do you know what the plan of God is in your pain tonight? That you might see Him face-to-face! That you might be brought nearer! Oh, I've so much to say to you. You know, his troubles didn't stop there, if anything they maybe got greater because he became a troubled parent in chapter 34, 35 and 38. Dinah was defiled by Shechem, and you remember Levi and Simeon, Jacob's sons, went out and tricked him - they said: 'You can marry our daughters if you get circumcised', and the day after they got circumcised they knew they weren't capable fighting, so they all went together and murdered the whole lot of them! Two of his sons became murderers, Reuben committed an incestuous act of adultery with Bilhah, Jacob's concubine. Then we find Judah committed adultery with Tamar who was disguised as a prostitute - boy, his problems were only starting, the pain caused by his children. We find then that his loved ones began to die, he was a tragic mourner, he lost his wife Rachel, his beloved, in childbirth. He buries his father in chapter 37, Isaac. Later on we find that he's parted from his only beloved son, the one he loved the most, Joseph. He is told by the rest of the brothers that he was killed, and they bring his coat of many colours back covered in blood. Can you see the pain that this man went through in his life?

Give me a minute or two, please. This man, he knew no sun without rain, he knew no joy without sorrow, no peace without pain. Do you remember when Joseph was in Egypt, and he asked for Benjamin to come? Do you remember that? You remember Joseph was testing his brothers, and trying to bring them to a knowledge of what they had done to him. In Genesis 42 and verse 36 it says this: 'Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me'. All these things are against me! Do you feel like that? I'll tell you this, he didn't know the end of the story! He didn't know that the one who was taking away his children was the one in Egypt who would feed his children in the famine, because it was his own son! He didn't know, but as far as he was concerned all these things were against him. My friend, he was judging these outward things but he didn't realise that God was for him, for He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! And the miracle of it all is: He's our God tonight! The miracle is: He is for us! All things work together for good because He is for us!

Now come with me as we close, for in Genesis 49 - don't turn to it - I can see this old man's pale, ashen, wax face, I can see the furrows of worry on his brow from the life of pain and trial and turmoil and torment that he has been caused. It has been a rough road, it's been a road of failure, a road of sin. In Genesis 49 it says that he's about to take his last breath, and he plumps down on the bed, his head bangs against the headboard and he swings his feet into the bed, and he sighs for the last, and the word of God says this: 'When Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people'. A life of pain, trial, turmoil, tragedy, but like Abraham he died in the faith. Hallelujah! Whatever you're going through, child tonight, you'll die in the faith! Oh, no wonder we can sing:

'Oh, that will be

Glory for me,

When by His grace

I shall look on His face'.

That will be glory for me. If you didn't believe in grace, I'll bet you believe in it now, eh? When you look at a man like Jacob, he sighs his last and he's absent from the body, present with the Lord.

Father, we can say with an old slave trader: 'Tis grace hath led me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home'. Father, we take great courage and strength from the fact that Thou art willing and able and glad to call Thyself the God of Jacob, and we thank Thee that Thou too are the God of our salvation. Father, we pray for those going through turmoil and trial, that they may see the hand of God in it all, and that they may allow God to bless them in it, and that they may see the face of Christ in it all - for one day we will see Him face-to-face, and oh that will be glory, be glory for me. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - February 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

As Sparks Flying Upwards - Chapter 3

"The Jeopardy Of Joseph - Part 1"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

Genesis 37-45; 50

1.       Alienation Persecution Desertion (chapter 37)

2.       Temptation (chapter 39)

3.       Incarceration (chapter 40)

4.       Recognition (chapter 41)

5.       Glorification (chapters 42-45)

We've looked in the weeks that have gone by at 'The Agonies of Abraham', we've looked at 'The Life Journey of Jacob' last week, this week we seek to look at 'The Jeopardy of Joseph' - the danger that Joseph faced right throughout his whole life. We don't have one specific reading this evening because there's so much ground to cover right from chapter 37 to chapter 50 - his whole life story spans the great majority of the book of Genesis. So we'll be looking at little passages and little verses as we go through this great study this evening, so please do bear with me.

I know that this life story of Joseph is one that is very familiar to you all. We've heard it from the very earliest age, if we've been brought up in a Christian home and in a Christian environment. We've been to Sunday School perhaps, and the children's meeting, and we've heard the great wonderful stories of this man called Joseph, and all the trials and problems that he went through, and how God went through them with him. Often familiarity with these Bible stories or Sunday School tales can bring distance in our hearts that prevents us applying these spiritual truths to our lives. It's like the singing of hymns, we can learn them off by heart, so much so that the spiritual truths and depths of them don't really sink down deep into our soul. It's always a good thing to sing a hymn as if it's the first time we're singing it, looking at the words, and it's the same as we read through the Bible stories that God has given us.

There are so many things to teach us in the story and the life of Joseph tonight that I don't want us to miss any of them. I want the teaching and the principles and the precepts that God has laid down in this man's life to really come home to us, I want us to take them and to apply them individually to our lives and to the things that we face within them. But of course, these things are written for our learning, but as we go into the New Testament we realise that these things, on many occasions, in the Old Testament are typical teachings of our Lord Jesus. They're pictures, they're paintings if you like, that are pointing forward to the Lord Jesus Christ who would come one day and would be the ultimate man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. As we go through this I don't want you just to apply these truths to yourself, but I want you to see our lovely Lord Jesus, and to see the great implications in Joseph's life that point towards His life.

As we look at this chapter, chapter 37, it's springtime in the plain of Dothan. To the south of the plain of Dothan there are the mountains of Samaria, and to the north there are the mountains of Gilboa. Standing just in the middle, on one of those lower ranges of the bordering mountains, you can almost see from a height little black dots against the green grass of the plain. Those little black dots are the tents of Jacob, Jacob that great man of God that we were thinking of last week - the father of Israel, his name was changed, of course, to Israel, and his twelve sons became the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel. There those little tents are, Jacob and his wives and his sons, and they're feeding the flocks, they're tending the flocks on the plain of Dothan. All of a sudden, as you survey that great scene, like a rainbow darting out of the darkness on a cloudy day, this tall, dark, handsome young man in a multicoloured coat catches your eye. It is Joseph.

You will know from life's experience, and even from the reading of the word of God, that love sees afar off. Love sees afar off, you read the story of the Prodigal Son and you can see there that the father saw his son returning to him, it says, a great way off. The love that was in the father's heart for the prodigal son caused him, after seeing him afar off, to run after him, to put his arms round him and to kiss him on the neck. But you know, love is not the only thing that sees afar off, for in verse 19 of this chapter we find these words: 'And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh' - hate also sees afar off. Hate for one when you see him coming, and we see here in the brothers of Joseph, they see him coming: 'Behold, the dreamer comes' - they see him with the eye of envy, the eye of hate, and in their voice you can just hear that jealousy toward their chosen, blessed, beloved brother.

Everyone loves a dreamer, isn't that true? This world loves people with great imagination, you can see it in the whole Disney empire today, and the great movies that are being produced with computer graphics. Everybody loves a dreamer, but it's oh so different being a dreamer for God. Joseph was a dreamer for Jehovah. This is a wonderful story, and one of the reasons why it's so popular even in our secular world, and people make movies about it, is because it contains all of the elements of life - many things that you go through and I will go through within our life's experience. You have ambition of a striving young man; you've got great dreams, aspirations and hopes; you've got love; you've got sorrow, envy, hatred - temptation is at the centre of the plot. You've got lust, revenge, suffering, sin, and fighting. Great passions right throughout this story that we find right throughout our individual lives.

One thing it teaches us, friends tonight, is that this book before us may be thousands upon thousands of years old, but it never ever becomes irrelevant - and man, no matter what the church today says, or psychology today says, or anthropologists say, man never changes! From age to age he is the same, he has still the same joys, still the same sorrows and problems and obstacles - and what a joy it is for us this evening to take a man like Joseph, to look at his life story, to look at the jeopardy that is threaded right throughout it all, and to see within ourselves the same problems, the same trials, and - glory be to God - to see the same Lord who will bring us through them all. To know that what men, women, organisations, systems, may think toward us for evil, that God can mean it for good.

So the jeopardy in Joseph's life starts with your first point on your sheet: alienation, then persecution, and then desertion right throughout chapter 37. Joseph was a dreamer, and his dreams alienated him from his brethren - his brothers hated him for it. Now you remember, we don't have time to look at them in any detail, but you remember the extraordinary dreams that he had. One of his dreams was that the sheaves of his brothers that they had gathered in from the fields after cutting them down, that all those eleven sheaves bowed down to his one sheaf. In another dream he saw the sun and the moon and eleven stars all bowing down and bringing obeisance to Joseph. He was sharing, with great excitement, these dreams with his brothers - and they absolutely detested him! They resented it, that he should proudly come and dictate and declare how God in some way had chosen him above his brethren.

Jacob even rebuked his beloved son for doing it, but I believe, probably, deep down in his own heart he knew that this son was special, this son was chosen, this son was blessed from God, and that God was giving him these special dreams. You know, just before we go any further tonight, I want you to see that Joseph - even though perhaps he dealt with these dreams wrongly and he shared them with his brothers perhaps in an ostentatious, proud, puffed-up way - you've got to see tonight that right at the beginning of Joseph's walk he was a dreamer. Now, I don't mean an idle dreamer that sits in the classroom looking into space or looking out the window, I'm talking about a man who had a vision. This man's vision was from God, it was a prophetic vision, it was a vision for the glory of God in his life, and the testimony and the witness of God to shine throughout him.

Of course, you know, I hope you know, that the word of God teaches that without a vision the people perish. Without a vision the people perish, and that's not just talking about those who are not saved, it's talking about everybody. If you don't have a vision in life, and to us in our spiritual life, you will perish, you will starve. Clarence McCartney, a great preacher on character studies, says this about Joseph the dreamer, listen to these words: 'Our dreams are the golden ladders by which we climb to heavenly places. They are the mountain peaks of vision, whence we see afar off the country toward which we travel. They are the lantern by whose light we pass safely through the dark valley. They are the inner flame that gives us strength and energy for the struggle. They are the two-edged sword by which we cleave the steaming head of the dragon of temptation and leave him dying at our feet'.

Now, what we're talking about tonight is not dreams from God that we have in the night as we have our head upon our pillow, but how we are applying it generally to ourselves, I would say, has to be the word of God. The word of God is our vision, the word of God is our dream, our hope, our aspiration. All the promises, the great and precious promises that tell us of a home in heaven, that tell us of the glory that is laid out before us in our heavenly promised land, all of that must be what we take from God to be our vision. But the irony of it all is this: just like in the life of Joseph, our vision, our dream, even the word of God can be the very thing that alienates us from our brethren. It can be the very thing that causes enmity in our families, among our friends, in the workplace, in even the community, and sometimes sadly in the church of Jesus Christ.

Now, let me say before I go on any further: if you're here tonight and you were brought up in a Christian home, praise God for it! Thank the Lord for it! Oh, when you're going through those teenage years, perhaps you sometimes curse it because you can't get away with the things that others get away with - but I hope you're old enough now, and mature enough to look back in faith and see that God's hand of blessing was there that you didn't have opposition in the home for your walk with Christ and your testimony and sharing the Gospel. They didn't look down on you for opening the Bible, or singing, or praying. The fact that you thank God for it, there's a whole lot of other people - probably more - and they don't know what that is, they've never known what that is. In fact, they know more the words of the Lord Jesus Christ when He said: 'I have not come into this world to bring peace, but to bring a sword, to bring war. I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household'. This is eternal truth, you can't dispensationalise this tonight, because what we see in the life of Joseph is exactly the same in hundreds of believer's lives - where they have enmity at home, they're alienated, they don't feel any longer part of their family because they've been converted.

It's easy for us who have been brought up in a Christian environment to forget about those people, to think that they don't even exist. That alienation that can come into a family or into a home or into a life, that alienation usually grows to become persecution. When these people that you've become alienated from begin to persecute you, that's what you find in this passage. They didn't just say: 'That boy's a weirdo, just ignore him. We'll get on with our stuff, and let him dream away', but it moved on to where they were grabbing him, they were taking him, and they were putting him down a pit - and if it wasn't for Reuben, they would have killed him!

Alienation leads to persecution, and then persecution leads to desertion for they went away and they didn't listen to his cries for help. They walked away, they went back to Jacob, they brought his lovely coloured coat, they covered it in animal's blood and they said: 'We think that a beast has got him, we think he's dead'. Some of you know what I'm talking about. You're the only one in the home, you're the only one in the marriage - your partner, your spouse is not converted. I don't what that's like, but I imagine it must be a great turmoil and a great burden. I'm not saying there's not love in the relationship, but the trial that that must be, the hardship, the turmoil. Maybe it's the work environment: you're the only Christian in the office, or the only Christian in the class at university or school. Maybe it's even in a church! You're a dreamer for God, but nobody else seems to be thinking the thoughts that you're thinking, everybody else is downcast, discouraged, but you're wanting them to go onwards and upward!

Men with a dream for God have always been persecuted, that's why the Lord warned His disciples that they would be. In this very land in which we live, and in Scotland and in England, and right across Europe, not many hundred years ago the Reformers were persecuted, they were beheaded, they were burned at the stake - why? Because they had a dream for God, they saw all of a sudden by faith under the Holy Spirit's influence that justification was by faith alone. They died for it. Look what happened to Joseph: they saw this dreamer coming afar off, they said: 'Come now', verse 20, 'therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams'. 'Wipe Martin Luther out, and we'll see what will become of his dreams! Wipe Zwingli out, wipe John Huss and John Wycliffe out! We will see what will happen to their dreams!'. My friend, listen, if you have a vision for God like Joseph you've got to be prepared to have men pull you down when you stand up with your vision. If you're not prepared to suffer for your vision you might as well forget about dreaming about anything.

That story of William Carey is most poignant, isn't it? A Baptist Church in England had got themselves into such a hyper-Calvinistic quagmire that they didn't even go out and preach the Gospel any more. All of a sudden this young cobbler had a heart for souls, to win them in India. He stands to his feet among a room of what he thinks are godly, old, mature men and he says: 'I want to go and tell these people in India that Jesus died for them and that they need to be converted by the grace of God'. And they said: 'Sit down, young man, if God will convert the heathen He will do it without your help!'. He had a vision, and he suffered for his vision, but he was the first man in the modern era to take the Gospel to India.