Our Portrait in Genesis - Chambers, Oswald

Our Portrait in Genesis
Oswald Chambers

Introduction                

Source

The material in Our Portrait in Genesis is from lectures by Oswald Chambers to his Old Testament studies class at the Bible Training College, 1 London, from September 1914 to January 1915 and from April to July 1915.

Publication History

 .As Articles: Notes on Genesis, chapters 26 through 37, were published in the BTC Monthly Journal 2 between April 1941 and May 1943; Notes on Genesis, chapters 1 through 6, were published between April 1951 and March 1952.

.As a book: Our Portrait in Genesis was first published in 1957. Gems from Genesis (1989) combined Not Knowing Whither (1934) and Our Portrait in Genesis in one volume. In the present collection, these books are presented as two separate volumes, the form in which they were originally published.

Chambers lectures on Genesis were given in his Old Testament studies class at the Bible Training College between September 1914 and July 1915. Although the lectures covered Genesis chronologically, they were not published in order. The lectures on chapters 12 through 25 appeared in 1934 as Not Knowing Whither, Studies in the Life of Abraham. Twenty- three years elapsed before Mrs. Chambers published her notes from the other chapters as Our Portrait in Genesis.

Neither volume included Oswald’s two lectures on Genesis 11, on the tower of Babel. It may have been simply Mrs. Chambers editorial decision regarding material she considered of greatest inter- est to the reader. Or, she may have been unable to attend every class and did not have notes on chapter 11during the eleven-month span of these lectures she had the care of their infant daughter, Kathleen, 3 and, as lady superintendent of the college, oversight of myriad daily details, as well as the taking of verbatim shorthand notes of everything her husband said.

Our Portrait in Genesis is the last book published by Mrs. Chambers from her shorthand notes. (The Servant as His Lord, published in 1959, combined four previously published booklets. ) In 1960, Mrs. Chambers began to show evidence of severe mental illness, which virtually curtailed her work. She died in 1966 .

Foreword                     

Now these things were our examples. 1 Corinthians 10:6 We know nothing of the beginning of life on this planet Earth unless we accept the revealed facts recorded in the Bible. When these early stories are accepted as a true record of individual lives we can learn much about Gods dealings with men and women in every age. There are flashes of light on Gods relation to fallen Man which can touch a live nerve in a modern wrong- doer, and something of the Divine mercy is seen as it persists with perverse and misguided men.

Oswald Chambers brings out the moral significance of human conduct; the intrusion of sin into human affairs, and Gods counter-move against sin and against the Satanic power behind the scenes. Now these things were our examples, wrote the Apostle Paul in reference to some Old Testament incidents. This can be applied to Cain and Abel, to Noah, and to Abraham (in these things they became figures of us rv margin) as we see the subtle working of sin in the unregenerate human heart; of crafti- ness and insincerity between man and man; of the law of retribution on the one hand or the due recompense on the other.

Here is a book for to-day. The Spirit of God is revealing the deep things of God, especially as they bear on the deep things of humanity. Above all we hear of the God of all grace, Who gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins yours and mine and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. I thank God for this gallery of portraits in Genesis, and for the Spirits illumination through the expositors instructed and clear-seeing mind. David Lambert.

Contents
Beginnings Genesis 1–2………………………………………………………….. 959
Temptation in Paradise Genesis 3 ……………………………………………. 960
Message of God on Sin Genesis 4 ……………………………………………. 962
The Evolution of Depravity Genesis 6:1–7 ……………………………….. 963
The Call of the Forlorn Hope Genesis 6:8–22 …………………………… 964
The Dark of Faith Genesis 7–9 ……………………………………………….. 965
Abiding Factors Genesis 26:1–12 …………………………………………….. 966
The Tender Grace Genesis 26:13–33 ……………………………………….. 967
Plans and Providence Genesis 27……………………………………………… 969
The Lone Quest Genesis 28 ……………………………………………………. 970
Love Genesis 29…………………………………………………………………….. 971
Degeneration Genesis 29–30 …………………………………………………… 973
The Crisis in Circumstances Genesis 31 …………………………………… 974
Mahanaim Genesis 32 ……………………………………………………………. 975
Misgiving Genesis 32:3–21……………………………………………………… 976
Peniel Genesis 32:22–32 …………………………………………………………. 977
The Still Small Voice Genesis 33–35 ……………………………………….. 978
The Boy of God Genesis 37–50 ………………………………………………. 980

Beginnings
Genesis 1–2

In the beginning God . . . Genesis 1:1 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Revelation 1:8 The Bible never argues or debates, it states revelation facts, and in order to understand these facts we are dependent entirely, not on intellectual curiosity, but on a relationship of faith. Our perception of Bible truth is of the nature of implicit vision granted by the Holy Spirit, and the remarkable thing about the Holy Spirits illumination of Bible truth is that it commends itself as being the true interpretation to every child of God who is in the light. Science (knowledge systematised) is mans intellectual effort to expound established facts, facts which all intelligent men accept as facts; it is his attempt to arrange these facts into some kind of unity which will not contradict the fundamental way man is made. When we are born again we come in contact with another domain of facts, viz. , the Bible domain of revelation facts, and there must be an at-onement made between the two domains. Scientific truth is apt to be accepted readily while we are sceptical over revelations made by the Holy Spirit. Our tendency is to put truth into a dogma: Truth is a Person. I am . . . the Truth, said Jesus. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void [waste and void, RV ]. (Genesis 1:12) Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Hebrews 11:3) Fundamentally, chaos the state of matter before it was reduced to order by the Creator is not to be regarded necessarily as the result of Divine judgement but as the foundation of cosmos, like a painters palette where he mixes his colours: he sees in it what you cannot. Bairns and fools shouldn’t see half-done work. We must bear in mind that the constructed world of man we see to-day is not the created world of God. The basis of mans life has had a formation put upon it which is not of God; what is needed is not the re-forming of the basis, but the removal of that which has been erected on the basis. If I build my life on the things which God did not form He will have to destroy them, shake them back into chaos. That is why whenever a man, moral or immoral, sees for the first time the light of God in Jesus Christ it produces conviction of sin, and he cries out, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. When the Holy Spirit comes into a man his beauty is consumed away, the perfectly ordered completeness of his whole nature is broken up; then the Holy Spirit, brooding over the chaos that is produced, brings a word of God, and as that word is received and obeyed a new life is formed. And the Spirit of God moved upon [was brooding upon, RV mg] the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Gods word creates, and creates by its own power. God speaks, and His word performs that which He sends it to accomplish (cf. Isaiah 55:11). And God saw the light, that it was good: The matter of Gods creation is a satisfaction to God, and when we come to know God by His Spirit we are as delighted with His creation as He is Himself. A child enjoys all that God has created, everything is wonderful to him. As in the beginning Gods word was the creative fiat, and that words witness to itself satisfied God, so the work of Christ in a disciple witnesses to Him; it is the Living Word speaking the words, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. My value to God is that in obedience to His spoken word I present to Him in actuality His idea in sending it forth, Gods word expressed in me becomes its own witness to God. Gods word is clear and emphatic, and when we first hear it we are full of joy; then that word has to become its own witness and give Him satisfaction. The fanatic mistakes the vision which the word brings for its expression in actuality. Am I prepared to put Gods word into its right place, into the matter of me? If I am, it will bring forth, not my idea, but Gods idea, viz. , the life according to God. It is not my faith laying hold of the word, but the life in the word laying hold on me and faith is as natural as breathing, and I say, Why, bless God, I know that is true! Strictly speaking, no seed germ contains in itself the maturer growth, it is the other forces acting outside it as well as its own inherent life that determines what it will be ultimately. And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. . . . And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it: because that in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. (Genesis 1:31; 2:3 rv).

Six days God laboured, thinking Creation, until, as He thought, so it was. On the seventh day God rested, not from fatigue, but because that work was finished which enabled Him to rest, immanent in all the laws of Nature, in constant manifestation of His overruling power, so that it were as easy for God to perform a miracle to-day as in the beginning.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. (Genesis 2:7)

The first man is of the earth, earthy. (1 Corinthi- ans 15:47)

These verses refer to the fundamental nature of man, dont complicate their meaning by introducing the doctrine of sin at the moment. These two things, dust and Divinity, make up man. That he is made of the dust of the ground is mans glory, not his shame it is only his shame in so far as he is a sinner, because in it he is to manifest the image of God. We are apt to think because we are of the earth, earthy, that this is our humiliation, but it is not so; it is the very thing Gods word makes most of. A doctrine which has insinuated itself right into the heart of Christianity and has a hold on it like an octopus, is the inveterate belief that sin is in matter, therefore as long as there is any matter about me there must be sin in me. If sin were in matter it would be untrue to say that Jesus Christ was without sin because He took on Him our flesh and blood, becoming in [rv mg] the like- ness of men. Sin does not belong to human nature as God designed it, it is abnormal, therefore to speak of sin being eradicated, rooted up, is nonsense, it never was planted in. I have no business to say, in Christ I am all right but in myself I am all wrong; I have to see to it that everything related to my physical life is lived in harmony with and perfect obedience to the life of the Son of God in me.

The Originator and Maintainer of the new life imparted to us by the Redemption is Christ Himself, and our Lords words in John 6:56 reveal His fathomless conception of that life he that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. Before, the disposition of self-will ruled You touch my flesh, and I hit you back; you touch my blood, and it boils in passion. Now, says Jesus, let the very corpuscles of your blood, every nerve and cell of your flesh, exhibit the new life which has been created in you. That life is exhibited in this bodily temple of the Holy Ghost (What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? ), it is a fleshly temple, not a spiritual one. The whole meaning of being born again and becoming identified with the death of Christ is that His life might be manifested in our mortal flesh. When we are born from above (RV mg) the life of the Son of God is born in us, and the perfection of that life enables us not only to make out (moffatt) what the will of God is, but to carry out His will in our natural human life.

Temptation In paradise
Genesis 3

There is something inconceivable to us in Adams relationship to God, he saw God as simply as we see one another And they heard the voice [sound, RV mg] of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8). Until Adam fell, he was not interested in God, he was one with God in communion a man is never interested in that which he is; when Adam fell, he became so appallingly interested in God that he was afraid of Him and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden (RV ). Sin finds us severed from God and interested only in anything we can be told about Him, consequently there is an element of fear; when we become children of God, there is no fear. As long as a child has not done wrong he enjoys perfect freedom and confidence towards his parents, but let him disobey, and the one he disobeys becomes someone in whom he is interested, with an element of fear. Conscious piety springs from being interested in God I want to know whether I am right with God; if you are right with God, you are so one with Him that you are unconscious of it, the relationship is deeper than consciousness because you are being disposed by the very nature of God. When the Apostle Paul talks of a man sinning: Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world (rv ), remember who it is he refers to, viz. , not to a being like you or me, but to the great Federal Head of the human race. Sin is not part of human nature as God designed it, it is extraneous. The Bible looks on sin, not as a disease, but as red-handed rebellion against the domination of the Creator. The essence of sin is I wont allow anybody to boss me saving myself, and it may manifest itself in a morally good man as well as in a morally bad man. Sin has not to do with morality or immorality, it has to do with my claim to my right to myself, a deliberate and emphatic independence of God, though I veneer it over with Christian phraseology. If, as a saint, I allow this spirit to get back into me, I become the embodiment of heaven and hell in conflict. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eat- est thereof thou shalt surely die (Genesis 2:1617). And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die (3:4). Eve finds that what Satan told her is true, death does not strike them all at once: but its possibility has come in. Death has secretly begun. We transgress a law of God and expect an experience akin to death, but exactly the opposite happens, we feel enlarged, more broad-minded, more tolerant of evil, but we are more powerless; knowledge which comes from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, instead of instigating to action, paralyses. For the wages of sin is death man becomes subject to death, not because he is a finite being, but because of sin. Whenever a man touches sin, death is the inevitable result, it is the way God has constituted him; when he is alive in sin, he is dead to God. And you did He quicken, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1 rv). What every human being inherits is not punishment for sin but the disposition of sin which entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. Death was not in Gods purpose for man. When we are born again we have exactly the experience of going through death. Thou canst not see My face: for man shall not see Me and live (Exodus 33:20 rv)and yet we do see God and live, but we only see God by going through death. I must die, die right out to my claim to my right to myself, and receive the gift of eternal life, which is the gift of God . . . through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the man said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Adam does not blame himself; neither does Eve blame herself: And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. They both evade the moral truth. Verbal truth is rarely moral truth. It takes a long time to bring me to the place where I will blame myself. Adam admits, but there is no confession, he implies rather that God is to blame You should not have put me in a position where I could disobey; I don’t deny I did wrong, but remember the extenuating circumstances, You shouldn’t be so stern and holy. That is the first manifestation of the spirit of anarchy. The diabolical nature of sin is that it hates God, because when I am face to face with the holiness of God I know there is no escape, consequently there is nothing the natural heart of man hates like a holy God. We dont live deep enough down to realise this. If only God would not be so holy as my conscience tells me He is. It is a mixed-up certainty, I know I am not right with God and I don’t want to be and yet I do. I will do any- thing rather than take the responsibility on myself for having done wrong: or if I do accept the responsibility, I defy God to readjust me, the one is as bad as the other. I either refuse to say I have sinned, or I admit I have sinned and refuse to let God save me; I wont allow God to have the last word; I have the last word and intend to stick to it. That is the attitude of the devil. If we confess our sins, . . . says the Apostle John. Whenever conviction of sin comes, out into the light with it, confess it, because when I realise the shame of it and accept Gods forgiveness, there is an in wrought energy brought back in place of the energy which went out in the sin; with the majority of us that energy is lost, it does not come back in the fruits of repentance. And the L ord God said unto the serpent, . . . I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed . . . (Genesis 3:1415). God does not deal with Satan direct, man must deal with Satan because man is responsible for his intro- duction. That is why God became Incarnate. Put it in any other way why God could banish Satan in two seconds; but it is man who, through the Redemption, is to overcome Satan, and much more than overcome him, he is to do that which will exhibit the perfect fulfilment of this prophecy. Jesus Christ, the last Adam, took on Him our human form, and it is through His seed in that human form that Satan is to be overcome. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly (Romans 16:20). Everything that Satan and sin have marred, God holds in an unimpaired state for every son of man who will come to Him by the way back which Jesus Christ has made .

Message of God on sin
Genesis 4

1. Sin Coucheth at the Door (Genesis 4:7)

And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. (v. 8)

No man can murder his brother who has not first murdered God in himself. Cains crime is more than murdering his brother, it is a deeper crime within that crime, viz. , the putting up of his whole nature against God, and, finally, accusing God for his punishment Of course, my sin is unpardonable if You are a holy God, but You are to blame for being a holy God.

And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? (vv. 67). These verses present God doing for Cain what He did for Adam and Evegiving him a Divine opportunity for repentance. Remorse is never repentance, remorse is the rebellion of mans own pride which will not agree with Gods judgement on sin but accuses God because He has made His laws too stern and holy. Adam and Eve acknowledged their sin although they never con- fessed it. Cain evades acknowledgement; first, he lies to God, then he becomes scornful of God And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brothers keeper? Sin in Adam and Eve revealed itself as envy of God (see 3:5); in Cain it advances to envy of his brother

And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. Per- sonal vindictive rage is the spirit of murder. . . . not as Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil, and his brothers righteous. . . . Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:12, 15 rv). And He said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brothers blood crieth unto Me from the ground (Genesis 4:10). Murder may be done in a hundred and one ways, think of the number of voices that cry unto God to-day from men who have been murdered in civilised life. The cry of every murdered innocence, every perverted right, is in the ear of God, and in this sense the blood of Abel still speaks and will never be silenced.

2. The Solitariness of Guilt (Genesis 4:1115)

And now cursed art thou from the ground . . . a fugitive and a wanderer shall thou be in the earth. (vv. 1112 rv)

Beware of speaking of reaction when God says retribution. The man who has done wrong has such a guilty conscience that he imagines everything is against him: everything is against him God is against him, every bit of earth is against him; he stands absolutely alone. Nothing associates itself with the sinner saving his sin. Once sin enters in, you are out of gear with God morally and with the universe physically.

And Cain said unto the Lord , My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth. (vv. 1314 rv) Cain takes Gods punishment, which is His mercy, and perverts it into a penal decree making it impossible for him to come back. He entrenches himself in despair as a garment and spits back accusations against God See what You have done; I cant get back.

When we are punished by God for wrong- doing our attitude is apt to be Oh well, its no use trying to do any better, God has sent me from His presence, and I cant get back, I can do as I like now. Beware of making the despairing-sulk complaint, which is found in all of us, a threatening accusation against God. God can never forgive despair. The door is always open to God until I shut it. God never shuts it; I shut it, then I lose the key and say, Its all up; whatever I do now God is entirely to blame. Look for these things inside yourself; if you don’t find them there, you are a humbug to find them out- side you.

Never disassociate yourself from anything any human being has ever done, that is the delusion of a moral lunatic. God will give you such a knowledge of yourself that you wont be able to say, I don’t know how anyone could do that, you will know humiliatingly before God how the vilest crime could be committed. You wont say, But I could never do that; you could. Any human being can do what any human being has ever done. When you see a criminal and feel instantly, How horrible and vile that man is, it is a sure sign that the Lord is not in you; if He is in you, you will not only feel how horrible and vile he is, you will say, But for God, I am that, and much worse. But don’t use it as a pious phrase; if you don’t mean it, never say it.

And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod [That is, Wandering, rv mg]. (4:16)

Cain had no rest anywhere, the earth spurned him, therefore he went into the land of Wandering and constructed his own world. Men who have sinned and maintain themselves in their sin cannot endure themselves on Gods earth, so they must make a world of their own and put it on Gods earth. There is no place for sin on Gods earth.

And he builded a city. (v. 17) The first civilisation was founded by a murderer, and the whole basis of civilised life is a vast, complicated, more or less gilded-over system of murder. We find it more conducive to human welfare not to murder men outright, we do it by a system of competition. It is ingrained in our thinking that competition and rivalry are essential to the carrying on of civilised life; that is why Jesus Christs statements seem wild and ridiculous. They are the statements either of a madman or of God Incarnate. To carry out the Sermon on the Mount is frankly impossible to any- one but a fool, and who is the fool? The man who has been born again and who dares to carry out in his individual life the teaching of Jesus. And what will happen? The inevitable result, not the success he would otherwise have. A hard saying, but true.

The evolution of depravity
Genesis 6:1–7

1. The Floods of Elemental Sin

And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5 rv )

Depravity must be taken to mean much more than going wrong, it means rather to be so established in the wrong that the result is a real pleasure in it. There is an inspiration in choosing to do wrong, it means a simplification of the life. Immediately you choose to do wrong you are not only conscious that you are without excuse, you become brazenly fixed in the wrong; that is the characteristic of the devil. The revelation the Bible makes is not that men are getting worse, but that men are damnable consequently they are saveable; the system of things he lives in may get worse, but a man cant be worse than damnable. If the mind of man persistently tries to remove the possibility of damnation he destroys the justice of God, destroys his own manhood, and leaves in its place an evolving animal-life to which God is not necessary. Matthew 15:19 (rv): For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts. . . . (See also Jeremiah 17:9: the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? ) refers to the depravity of the human heart apart from God.

The elemental fountain of depravity is there, the reason it is not manifested to my consciousness is either sheer ignorance by reason of a refusal to accept Jesus Christs diagnosis, or because I have been saved and sanctified by Gods mighty grace. According to our Lord these things are in the mother-heart, that deepest seat of moral character that lies below the conscious, the conscious thought, and still more the conscious purpose. When Gods Spirit comes in and opens from underneath our consciousness the abyss we are on, the only thing to do is to completely surrender to Him, and the abyss is closed for ever. It is entire rightness with Jesus Christ alone that prevents elemental depravity working in the heart and out into deeds. If I trust Jesus Christs diagnosis and hand over the keeping of my heart to Him, I need never know in conscious experience what depravity is, but if I trust in my innocent ignorance I am likely one of these days to turn a corner and find that what He said is true.

When the crisis comes and men find that what they took to be their innocent heart is really a sink of iniquity, they would be the first to say, Why did not God tell us? Why were we not warned? We are warned, perfectly clearly, in order that we need never go through the terrible experience of knowing the truth of what Jesus said For from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed . . . (rv ) that is the marvellous mercy of God. Jesus Christs teaching never beats about the bush. Our stupidity is to believe only what we are conscious of and not the revelation He has made. Instead of its being a sign of good taste, it is a sign of shocking unbelief when men wont face what Jesus Christ has put so plainly, so unmistakably plainly, so brutally plainly at times, about the human heart. Again, let me urge you, never trust your innocent ignorance when Jesus Christs statements contradict it. Whenever any choice of ours is based on implicit disregard of God, we are depraved, and this possibility remains in every saint. Now I am saved and sanctified all I choose is sure to be right; not by any means. All I think is sure to be right, not so; if our choices and our thinking do not spring from the basis of a determined recognition of God, we are depraved, no matter what our experience spiritually.

2. The Foundation of Eternal Salvation

And it repented the Lord that He had made men on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. (Genesis 6:6)

An unemotional love is inconceivable. Love for the good must involve displeasure and grief for the evil. God is not an almighty sultan reigning aloof, He is right in the throes of life, and it is there that emotion shows itself. And it repented the L ord . . . . God does not repent like a man, He repents like God, that is, with- out change of plan or purpose. God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it? (Numbers 23:19). If God were to say of any sin, Oh well, he didnt mean it, I will let it go, that would be a change in Gods purpose. If God overlooked one sin in me, He would cease to be God.

The repenting of God in individual cases means that God remains true to His purpose and must mean my condemnation, and my condemnation causes Him grief and agony. It is not that God wont overlook wrong, it is that He cannot, His very love forbids it. When I am saved by Gods almighty grace I realise that I am delivered completely from what He has condemnedand that is salvation; I don’t palliate it any longer, but agree with Gods verdict on it on the Cross. At the back of all the condemnation of God put Calvary.

The call of the forlorn hope
Genesis 6:8–22

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the L ord . . . . Noah was a righteous [rv] man, and perfect [blame- less, rv mg] in his generations: Noah walked with God. (Genesis 6:89)

1. Noah Found Grace

Grace is the overflowing immeasurable favour of God; God cannot withhold, the only thing that keeps back His grace and favour is our sin and perversity. Noah walked with God. To walk with God means the perpetual realisation of the nature of faith, viz. , that it must be tried or it is mere fancy; faith untried has no character-value for the individual. There is nothing akin to faith in the natural world, defiant pluck and courage is not faith; it is the trial of faith that is much more precious than of gold, and the trial of faith is never without the essentials of temptation. It is to be questioned whether any child of God ever gets through the trial of his faith without at some stage being honour-stricken; what God does comes as a stinging blow, and he feels the suffering is not deserved, yet, like Job, he will neither listen to nor tell lies about God. Spiritual character is only made by standing loyal to Gods character no matter what distress the trial of faith brings. The distress and agony the prophets experienced was the agony of believing God when everything that was happening contradicted what they proclaimed Him to be; there was nothing to prove that God was just and true, but everything to prove the opposite. The forlorn- hope aspect is the best, perhaps the only idea, for the godly in Time: all that has been built up on the basis of personal faith in God is contradicted by the immediate present, and it is the man who does not believe in God who has the safest, best time of it in the immediate present. The Bible is full of this attitude to things (e. g. , Psalm 73). It is when we forget this aspect of godliness that we cease to walk with God and only pay court visits to Him; we cease to be His children. To walk with God means walking apart from ultimate godless reliances. There is no such thing as a venture of faith, only a determined walk with God by faith. And Noah begat three sons (Genesis 6:10). Noahs sons are mentioned because in them the continuance of the human race is secure. If you are a snob you wont like the Bible genealogies because they have no respect for the aristocratic notion. Snobbery is the insistence on going far enough back but not too far!

2. My Spirit Shall Not Strive with Man for Ever

And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, . . . Behold, I will destroy them with the earth [from the earth, av mg]. (Genesis 6:1213)

It is Gods long-suffering patience ultimately coming to the conclusion that He must let the full destruction of His righteousness have its way. And God looked as if until now God had looked away, giving time through Enoch and Methuselah and Lamech, then suddenly He looks, and destruction swift and almighty comes.

and there is no reprieve, it means judgement, a final sentence. The pronouncement of coming doom is a combining of judgement and deliverance. When Gods limit is reached He destroys the un-saveable and liberates the saveable; consequently judgement days are the great mercy of God because they separate between good and evil, between right and wrong. Salvation to be experimental in me is always a judgement inasmuch as it is concerned with some kind of separation. The Cross condemns men to salvation. I remain indifferent to the Cross until I realise by the conviction of the Spirit of God that there are certain things in me which are damnable. I can always know the kind of disposition I have got by the sword God brings against me, I may plead and pray, but He is merciless, He saves me so as by fire. When once I am willing to agree with Gods condemnation in the Cross on those things, God in His infinite mercy, by bringing His judgement, saves. It is not judgement inaugurating salvation, but judgement that is salvation. The same with nations, and with the human race.

3. Make Thee an Ark

The ark stands as a reminder that nothing is until it is. Whenever we say a thing is impossible the reason is two foldeither our prejudices don’t wish it to be, or we say it is too wonderful to be possible. From the building of the ark on, just make quite sure a thing is impossible, and God does it. God can only do the impossible. In the realm of our human possible we don’t need God, common-sense is our God; we don’t pray to God, we pray to an erection of our common- sense. It is God who is the Architect of salvation, therefore salvation is not a common-sense design; what we have to do is to get inside that salvation. If I put my faith in any erection of my own, my vows and decisions, my consecration, I am building something for myself; I must co-operate with God in His plan of salvation. Picture Noah sitting down and saying,

God has given me a wonderful plan, I will watch and see it grow! Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him (Genesis 6:22 rv ). And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh . . . (v. 17 rv). The initiative springs from the Mind of Almighty God, And I, behold, I do bring . . . ; it is not the natural consequence of cause and effect. But I will establish My covenant with thee (rv); with the new human- ity after the flood.

The afterwards of God is never disconnected with the before of His promise, and Gods afterwards is more than the fulfillment of His promise, it is the re-expression of the fulfillment of the before of His purpose by my coming into living relationship with Him, if I will.

He dark of faith
Genesis 7–9

And the flood was forty days upon the earth . . . and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered . . . : and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. (Genesis 7:1724 rv ) The ark itself is submerged, saving the top of it, no foothold anywhere. God removed hope from any- where but Himself. That is a picture of the Kingdom of God in this dispensation, it appears to be com- pletely submerged, yet those very things which look as if they were going to smash it are the things God uses to preserve it.

1. The Express Covenant

But I will establish My covenant with thee. (Genesis 6:18 rv ) And God remembered Noah (8:1).

This does not mean that God had forgotten Noah; the remembrances of God are sure to those who will put their trust in Him. It is significant to note that whenever the Bible uses terms such as repent, remember, forsake, love, in connection with God, their human meaning does not apply, e. g. , the love of God can only be illustrated by the character of God. And after the end of an hundred and fifty days the waters decreased . . . (v. 3 rv). The at last of God is never an anticlimax, it always exceeds any possible human forecast. We must be careful never to compromise over any promise of God when by reason of human limitation there has been only a partial fulfillment. Such a compromise is easily detected whenever you feel, Oh well, I suppose that is all God meant. Every word God has spoken will be absolutely fulfilled; to climb down from that confidence is to be disloyal to God. Beware, though, of inferring because no good word of God will fail, that I personally will necessarily partake in its fulfillment; I assuredly will not unless I have come into vital relationship with God by determined faith.

And he stayed yet another seven days (v. 10). Verses 1014 indicate the prominent characteristic of Noah, viz. , the humility of patience. Patience is not the same as endurance because the heart of endurance is frequently stoical, whereas the heart of patience is a blazing love that sees intuitively and waits Gods time in perfect confidence. It is impossible to be patient and proud because pride weakens into lust, and lust is essentially impatient. Noah stands for all time as the embodiment of the patience of hope. And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark. . . . And Noah went forth . . . (8:1516, 18). As Noah went into the ark at the command of God, so at the command of God he goes forth of the ark. Had Noah been a fanatic, when God said, Go forth of the ark, he would have said, No, God said Come thou into the ark, and this must be the voice of the devil. There is always the danger of becoming a fanatical adherent to what God has said instead of adhering to God who said it. Noah waited Gods time to go out of the ark. The only way to wait for the Sec- ond Coming is to watch that you do what you should do so that when He comes is a matter of indifference. It is the attitude of a child, certain that God knows what He is about. When the Lord does come it will be as natural as breathing. God never does anything hysterical, and He never produces hysterics. 2. The Abiding Relationship (Genesis 9:817) And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, and I, behold, I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you. . . . (Genesis 9:89) God cannot do certain things without the co-operation of man. We continually ask, Why doesn’t God do the thing instead of waiting for me? He cannot. It is the same problem as the difference between Gods order and His permissive will. His permissive will allows the devil to do his worst and allows me to sin as I choose, until I choose to resist the devil, quit sinning, and come to God in the right relation- ship of a covenant with Him through Jesus Christ. It is Gods will that human beings should get into moral relationship with Him and His covenants are for that purpose. Why doesn’t God save me? He has saved me, but I have not entered into relationship with Him. Why doesn’t God do this and that? He has done it, the point is will I step into covenant relationship with Him? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant. Salvation is not an edict of God; salvation is something wrought out on the human plane through God becoming Man. Waiting for God is incarnate unbelief, it means I have no faith in Him, I want Him to do something in me that I may trust in that. God wont do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man has to go out of himself in his covenant with God as God goes out of Himself in His covenant with man. It is a question of faith in God, the rarest thing, we have faith only in our feelings. I don’t believe God unless He will give me something in my hand whereby I may know I have it, then I say, Now I believe. There is no faith there. Look unto Me, and be ye saved, God says. When I have really transacted business with God on His covenant and have let go entirely, there is no sense of merit, no human ingredient in it at all, but a complete, overwhelming sense of having been brought into union with God, and the whole thing is transfigured with peace and joy.

Abiding factors
Genesis 26:1–12

1. Commencement of Destitution

And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. (Genesis 26:1)

Isaacs history commences with the same trial as Abraham’s, viz. , a famine in the land. Abraham acted according to his own wits, not according to his faith in God: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was sore in the land (rv)destitution in the very land of promise. Watch the destitution of wits that follows quickly on the heels of a Divine revelation. Whenever you get a revelation from God you will be starved at once, starved, that is, in your wits, you can see no way out. Every time your wits compete with the worship of God you had better take a strong dose of Isaiah 30:1516In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. Beware of restlessness and wits persuading you that God has made a blunder God would never allow me to fall.

sick after giving me such a blessing; but He has! No matter what revelations God has made to you, there will be destitution so far as the physical apprehension of things is concerned God gives you a revelation that He will provide, then He provides nothing and you begin to realise that there is a famine, of food, or of clothes, or money, and your commonsense as well as other peoples says, Abandon your faith in God, do this, and that. Do it at your peril. Watch where destitution comes; if it comes on the heels of a time of quiet confidence in God, then thank Him for it and stay starving and He will bring a glorious issue.

2. Command in Trial

And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. (Genesis 26:2)

The command to Abraham was to depart; the command to Isaac is to remain. When the Isaac life of quietness and confidence in God is born of the Abraham life of strenuous separation, don’t make any more separations, just be still, and know that God is God. Those who educate you in the things of God will be the first to pull you back when you obey the voice which came through them. God taught you the right thing through them, and now you are obeying they come in with their own wits and say, Of course we didn’t mean you should do that; but God did. Beware of mixing quietness and confidence with other peoples wits.

3. Confirmation of Truth (Genesis 26:35)

. . . because that Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws. (v. 5)

Isaac is promised Divine blessing and protection because of Gods oath which He swore to Abraham on account of his obedience. Abraham’s obedience was far from perfect, but its great characteristic was its unreservedness. Abandon in the profound sense is of infinitely more value than personal holiness. Personal holiness brings the attention to bear on my own whiteness, I dare not be indiscreet, or unreserved, I dare not do anything in case I incur a speck. God cant bless that sort of thing, it is as unlike His own character as could be. The holiness produced through the indwelling of His Son in me is a holiness which is never conscious of itself.

There are some people in whom you cannot find a speck and yet they are not abundantly blessed of God, while others make grave indiscretions and get marvellously blessed; the reason being that the former have become devotees of personal holiness, conscientious to a degree; the latter are marked by abandonment to God. Whatever centres attention on anything other than our Lord Himself will always lead astray. The only way to be kept cleansed is by walking in the light, as God is in the light. Only as we walk in that light is the holiness of Jesus Christ not only imputed, but imparted, to us. Abraham’s aberrations sprang not from disobedience, but from trusting in his own wits. Directly Gods command was made known to him, he obeyed; when there was no command he was inclined to trust in his wits, and that is where he went wrong.

It is never right to do wrong in order that right may come, although it may seem justifiable from every standard saving one. In the long run you can never produce right by doing wrong, yet we will always try to do it unless we believe what the Bible says. If I tell a lie in order to bring about the right, I prove to my own conviction that I do not believe the One at the back of the universe is truthful. Judge everything in the light of Jesus Christ, who is The Truth, and you will never do the wrong thing however right it looks.

The tender Grace
Genesis 26:13–33

The only right a Christian has is the right to give up his rights. This is the tender grace which is usu- ally looked upon as an exhibition of lack of gumption. The embarrassing thing about Christian graces is that immediately you imitate them they become nauseating, because conscious imitation implies an affected preference for certain qualities, and we produce frauds by a spurious piety. All the qualities of a godly life are characteristic of the life of God; you cannot imitate the life of God unless you have it, then the imitation is not conscious, but the uncon- scious manifestation of the real thing. Pi people try to produce the life of God by sheer imitation; they pretend to be sweet when really they are bitter. The life of God has no pretence, and when His life is in you, you do not pretend to feel sweet, you are sweet.

1. The External Greatness of Isaac

And the man waxed great, and grew more and more until he became very great. (Genesis 26:13 rv)

Isaac never became great in the way that Abraham did, his greatness is of a different order. Abraham was not only a great man of God, he was a great man. Some lives exhibit grand characteristics and yet there are curious defects; the only standard for judging the saint is Jesus Christ, not saintly qualities. Beware of the snare of taking people as types; no one is a type of anything, he may recall a particular type, but he is always something other than the type. If Abraham is taken as the type of a saint you get embarrassed because of the things in him which are not saintly. We are always inclined to remain true to our own ideas of a person, it does not matter what the facts are, we interpret all that he does according to our idea of him. If I accept you as an expression of my idea of you, I will be unjust to you as a fact; I make you either better or worse than you are, I never hit just you until I learn to accept facts as facts.

2. The Extraordinary Gentleness of Isaac (Genesis 26:1426)

And Isaacs servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing [living, mg] water. And the herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaacs herdsmen, saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek [Contention, mg]; because they contended with him. (vv. 1920 rv )

The strife arose around a well of living water, and Isaac let them have it, that is, he refused to drink of the water of Contention. Whenever a doctrinal well becomes Esek, give it up; your life with God is more precious than proving you are right doctrinally. It is at the peril of your communion with God that you con- tend about a doctrine. And they digged another well, and they strove for that also (rv): and Isaac surren- dered it, calling it Sitnah, that is, Enmity (rv mg). It is a great sign of grace not to break your heart because you cannot drink of the water of Enmity. And he removed from thence, and digged another well, and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth [that is, Broad places, or Room, rv mg]; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. And the L ord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for My servant Abrahams sake. Isaac has come to a broad place and God appears to him, and for the first time the grand phrase, I am the God of Abraham appears. And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord. When you stand up for another who has been grossly wronged and your stand to be of any avail must have the co-operation of the wronged one, there is nothing more maddening than to find that he is without any resentment. That must have been the heart-breaking embarrassment to the disciples over our Lord; they had built up their own ideas as to how He was going to bring in His Kingdom and they were prepared to fight for Him, then they saw Jesus meekly give Himself up to the power of the world, He did nothing whatever to assert His rights. In the Christian life the problem arises not from the world, which says you are a fool, but from your friends who are prepared to stand up for you. Inoffensiveness, which is one of the chief charac- teristics of Isaac, usually means to our natural minds a quality unsuited to a strong personality. We have to bear in mind that the life of our Lord portrayed just this characteristic of inoffensiveness: As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea, He opened not His mouth (rv). He was crucified through weakness, and, we also are weak in Him. Anything to do with meekness and submissiveness is antagonistic to robust human nature. Our impatience gets beyond its limit because of the characteristics Jesus Christ insists upon: Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. . . . The natural heart builds on adventure, recklessness, independence, impulse; the characteristics God prizes are produced only in the son of sacrifice. Natural inoffen- siveness may be the weakness of constitutional timid- ity; supernatural inoffensiveness is almighty strength scorning to use the weapons of the flesh. Inoffensive- ness is self-control indwelt by the Holy Ghost, the fruit of the Spirit is . . . self-control [moffatt].

3. The Eternal and the Haphazard (Genesis 26:2833)

Let there now be an oath . . . betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee. . . . And he made them a feast and they did eat and drink. And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another. . . . And it came to pass the same day, that Isaacs servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. And he called it Shibah: therefore the name of the city is Beer- sheba [Well of the Oath] unto this day. (rv)

All the transactions entered into by both Abraham and Isaac, no matter how temporary or casual, were based on their relationship to God, that is, they used their wits in their worship of Him. This recognition of God began to be lost during Jacobs life, and the children of Israel went on ignoring it until they came to establish all their transactions on their own wits. Our Lord warns against taking an oath (see Mat- thew 5:3335), because in the sight of God an oath means the recognition of God in the most temporary transaction. In the Old Testament, and in the record of the Resurrection, we find the temporary matter of eating and drinking put on the eternal foundation of relationship to God. The things which can be most easily ridiculed are the things that have most of God in them. A saint can be ridiculed because he sees hap- hazard happenings in the light of the eternalThe Lord guided me here, and there. The fact that a man who is a fraud says the same thing as a saint is proof that he is counterfeiting something which is real. No actual fact has its right name unless you can wor- ship God in it. Remember, whatever happens, God is there. It is easy to fix your mind on God in a lecture, but a different matter to fix your mind on Him when there is a war on. 5 You never get at God by blinking facts, but only by naming Him in the facts; whether they are devilish or not, say, Lord, I thank Thee that Thou art here.

Plans and providence
Genesis 27

And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. (Genesis 27:5)

Plans arise from the human must the imperative demand of my own undisciplined nature which makes me feel, I must do something; God is no use here. God rarely rebukes us for our impulsive plans because those plans work their own distress. Plans made apart from trusting Gods wisdom are rotten. Providence arises from Gods majesty. The wisdom of God can never be according to mans understanding, and in our regenerated lives while we are climbing the slow ascensions of our Heavenly Fathers wisdom, He engineers our circumstances by His providence and puts within our inmost soul the childlike joy of con- fidence in Himself. It is always easier not to trust; if I can work the thing out for myself then I am not going to trust in God. I work out a plan whereby I say God must do the thing and I force His hand along certain lines, and when He does what I said I knew He would do, for an exhilarating moment I think I have made Him do it! Then I find I am to be punished for every- thing I tried to make Him do, though it looks as if my wrong had brought about His good. Beware of egging God on; possess your soul in patience. Always beware when you can reasonably account to yourself for the action you are about to take, because the source of such clear reasoning is the enthroning of human understanding. It is this ele- ment in the personal life of a Christian that fights longest and to the last against the enthronement of Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. Supposing I do say I will go to the foreign field, what about this, and that? I want a reasonable explanation. As long as you argue like that it is all up with devotion to Jesus Christ. He will have no influence over you until your plan is worked out because you have put your own wits on the throne. The reason we know so little about Gods wisdom is that we will only trust him as far as we can work things out according to our own reasonable commonsense.

1. Sensitiveness to Divinely Shaped Ends (Genesis 27:617)

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee. . . . (v. 8)

Still waters run deep, but an able woman is deeper. Abraham made the supreme blunder of trying to help God fulfill His promise; Rebekah repeats the blunder. A woman with a sense of values in the end to be achieved cares nothing about herself in the accomplishing of that end. And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice. . . . When a virtuous woman does wrong she does it with all the characteristic of her virtue transferred to the decep- tion; Rebekah carried out her deception as though she were called and inspired of God to do it. In such a case the sin is not the outcome of impulse, but the deliberate perversion of integrity. In individual experience no one person is ever entirely to blamemy father is to blame, my mother, my heredity, every- body and everything but myself. It is impossible for human wisdom to apportion the blame. Remember the one fact more which God alone knows.

2. Schemes of Discreet Expectations (Genesis 27:1825)

And Rebekah took the goodly raiment of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son. . . . (v. 15 rv)

This is the first pious lie enacted in the Bible. Rebekahs motive was born of the oracles of God . . . and the elder shall serve the younger (25:23):

her act was entirely wrong; she enacted a lie in order to help God carry out His purpose. This is very different from the lie told for our own ends. Jacobs enunciation of the lie And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn is expressive fundamentally, not of self-seeking, but of devotion to his mother, consequently there is no hesitation or bravado because he is not yet so conscious as he will be of what he is doing. Beware of obeying anyone elses obedience to God because it means you are shirking responsibility yourself. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. . . . Be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mothers sons bow down to thee: The whole lie is now enacted, and Jacob enters into the fullness of the blessing. God fore-ordained that the blessing should come to Jacob, but it was not part of that fore-ordination that Jacob should enter into the blessing in the way he did. There are experiences in human lives which are not part of Gods purpose, but the result of human perversity. Remember, trust in God does not mean that God will explain His solutions to us, it means that we are perfectly con- fident in God, and when we do see the solution we find it to be in accordance with all that Jesus Christ revealed of His character. It is nonsense to imagine that God expects me to discern all that is clear to His own mind, all He asks of me is to maintain perfect confidence in Himself. Faith springs from the indwelling of the life of God in me.

The lone Quest
Genesis 28

1. The Discipline of the Unchanging Destiny (Genesis 28:19)

And God Almighty bless thee, . . . that thou mayest inherit the land of thy sojournings, which God gave unto Abraham. (vv. 34 rv )

Jacobs destiny had nothing to do with his personal character, but his personal character had everything to do with the desperate discipline he went through. Gods destiny for a life will be fulfilled though the details of the fulfilment are determined by the indi- vidual. The kind of discipline Jacob went through was determined by his perversity. The lone quest is never pathetic unless, as in Jacobs case, it is mixed with cunning and sin in motive. Was not Esau Jacobs brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated (Malachi 1:23 rv). In all implicit matters intuition is of more avail than logic. Naturally, we are inclined to love Esau and dislike Jacob. The most undesirable person in later life is often the one who was most desirable when young. A chaotic young life is always the most satisfactory. . . . yet I loved JacobGod loves the man who needs Him. Esau was satisfied with what he was; Jacob wanted more than he was. Esau never saw visions, never wrestled with angels, although God was as near to him as to Jacob. Esau refused to sac- rifice anything to the spiritual; he could never think of anything but the present. He was willing to sell the promise of the future for a mess of pottage, and thereby he wronged himself far more than Jacob did.

2. The Dream of the Unimagined Dignity (Genesis 28:1022)

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the L ord stood above it [beside him, mg], and said, I am the L ord , the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (vv. 1214 rv)

Jacobs dream was a vision of the purpose of God for all the families of the earth. The destiny of the people known as Israel is forecast in this one lonely man. God did not select this people, He elected them. God created them from Abraham to be His servants until through them every nation came to know who Jeho- vah was. They mistook the election of Gods purpose to be the election of Gods favouritism, and the story of their distress is due to their determination to use themselves for purposes other than Gods. To this day they survive miraculously, the reason for their survival is the purpose of God to be fulfilled through them. They can still wait, still see visions of God, and the time is coming when Gods promise shall be ful- filled materialistically. The prophecies are frequently taken as pictures of spiritual blessings; they are much more than that.

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. The ladder symbolises communication between God and man. The only Being in whom communication with God was never broken is the Lord Jesus Christ, and His claim is that through the Redemption He can put every one of us in the place where communica- tion with God can be re-established. Pauls phrase in Christ the Mystical Christ, not the Historic Christi’s a revelation of the Redemption at work on our behalf. If I am in Christ the angels of God are always ascending and descending on my behalf, and the voice that speaks is the voice of God. (Cf. John 1:51. ) Beware of having a measuring-rod for the Almighty, of tying God up in His own laws. This pre-Incarnate vision of God was given to such a man as Jacob was. It is dangerous to have the idea that we merit these things; immediately prayer or devotion is taken as the ground of Gods blessing we are off the track. Prayer and devotion are simply the evidence that we are on Gods plan; to be devoid of any sense of ill-being spiritually is a sign that we are not on Gods plan. Jacob is the man who represents life as it is. The world is not made up of saints or of devils, but of people like you and me, and our real home is at the foot of the ladder with Jacob. Never say that God intends a man to have a domain of dreaming, mighty visions of God, and at the same time be dead towards God in his actual life. Jesus Christ claims that He can make the real and the actual one, as they were in His own life. When the vision comes it does not come to the Esau type of man, he is so thick- hided that to talk to him about the nearness of Gods presence is absurd, there is no meaning in itthat is absolutely true, there is no meaning in it, until he gets to the desolate spot. We cling to the certainty that the rational common sense life is the right one; Jesus Christ stands for the fact that a life based on the Redemption is the only right one, consequently when a man shifts from the one to the other there is a period of desolation. Remember, there is a vast moral distance between Bethel and Peniel.

3. The Dedication of the Unparalleled Dawn (Genesis 28:1620)

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. (vv. 1617)

This place means just where it is not within the bounds of imagination to infer that God would be. And he called the name of that place Bethel [The house of God, rv mg] because there God was revealed unto him. Every house of God is a gate of heaven where the impossible and the miraculous become the natural breath. There is always an amazed surprise when we find what God brings with Him when He comes, He brings everything! ( John 14:23). It is in the dark night of the soul that the realisation of Gods presence breaks upon us: we never see God as long as, like Esau, we are perfectly satisfied with what we are. When I am certain that in me . . . dwelleth no good thing, I begin to experience the miracle of seeing and hearing, not according to my senses, but according to the way the Holy Spirit inter- prets the word of God to me. Any number of people are happy without God, because happiness depends on not too profound an understanding of things; the god of this world hath blinded their minds[thoughts, rv mg] (2 Corinthians 4:4). When the revelation of Gods presence does come, it comes to those who are where Jacob was, in downright need and depression, knowing there is no help anywhere saving in God. As long as there is any vestige of human sufficiency it is all up with the message of God as far as we are concerned. When we come to consider it, the phrase, the God of Jacob, is the greatest possible inspiration; it has in it the whole meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who said . . . for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Had we been left with such phrases as the God of Joseph, or the God of Daniel, it would have spelt hopeless despair for most of us; but the God of Jacob means God is my God, the God not only of the noble character, but of the sneak. From the sneak to entire sanctification is the miracle of the grace of God.

Love
Genesis 29

Love, more than any other experience in life, reveals the shallowness and the profundity, the hypocrisy and the nobility, of human nature. In dealing with all implicit things, such as love, there is a danger of being sentimentally consistent to a doctrine or an idea while the actual life is ignored; we forget that we have to live in this world as human beings. Consistency in doctrine ought to work out into expression in actual life,

otherwise it produces the humbug in us; we have the jargon of the real thing, but actually we are not there. Anything that makes a man keep up a posture is not real; e. g. , it is not true to say that an understanding of the doctrine of sanctification will lead you into the experience: doctrinal exposition comes after the experience in order to bring the actual life into perfect harmony with the marvel of the work of Gods grace.

1. God and the Cult of the Passing Moment (Genesis 29:17)

Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the children of the east. . . . (v. 1 rv )

The true worship of God can only be maintained when the passing moments are seen as occurring in Gods order. If you try to forecast the way God will work you will get into a muddle; live the life of a child and you will find that every haphazard occa- sion fits into Gods order. The cult of the passing moment means that you resolutely believe that All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Dont be your own god in these matters; be concentrated, not on the haphazard, but on God, who comes to you through the haphazard. Jacob is realising Gods order in the midst of the haphazard circumstances in which he finds himself; in the com- ing of Rachel he suddenly meets God.

2. God and the Cult of the Passionate Moment (Genesis 29:814)

And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. (v. 11)

There is no safer guide in the matter of human love than the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Solomon says a penetrating thing I adjure you, . . . that ye stir not up, nor awaken love, until it please before the time (The Song of Songs 2:7 rv), and woe be to any such awakener. Many a man has awakened love before the time, and has reaped hell into the bargain. Love is awakened before the time whenever a man or woman ignores the worship of God and becomes a mere creature of impulsive passions. God cannot guard the natural heart that does not worship Him, it is at the mercy of every vagrant passion stirred by the nearness of another. Unless you are guarded by God in your human relationships you will get a multitude of haphazard affairs that God is not in; there are the same haphazard affairs in the life of a child of God, but God is in them. Beware of not worshipping God in your emotional history. Watch your fancies and your friends, heed who you love and who loves you, and you will be saved from many a pitfall.

3. God and the Cult of the Parenthetic Moment (Genesis 29:1520)

And Jacob loved Rachel; and he said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel. (v. 18)

Jacob was what he was mean, yet in the most mixed human life there may come a parenthesis which is pure and unsullied. Mark well the parentheses God puts into your human life. There is not a passage in the whole of the Bible to equal verse 20 for a description of pure human love: And Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. Sacrifice for love is never conscious; sacrifice for duty always has margins of distress. The nature of love is to give, not to receive. Talk to a lover about giving up anything, and he doesnt begin to understand you! Love is not blind; love sees a great deal more than the actual, it sees the ideal in the actual, consequently the actual is transfigured by the ideal. That is a different thing from halo-slinging, which means you have your own idea about other people and expect them to live up to it, and then when they don’t, you blame them. An ideal is not a halo, it is reality made clear to you by intuition. If you love someone you are not blind to his defects but you see the ideal which exactly fits that one. God sees all our crudities and defects, but He also sees the ideal for us; He sees every man perfect in Christ Jesus, consequently He is infinitely patient.

4. God and the Cult of the Paralleled Measure (Genesis 29:2530)

What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? (v. 25)

The humour of God is sometimes tragic; He engineers across our path the kind of people who exhibit to us our own characteristics not very flattering, is it? In this chapter we see the beguiler beguiled; Jacob was deceived, but he also was a deceiver. We say, I wonder why this should happen to me? Remember the Apostle Paul’s words: For he that doeth wrong shall receive again for the wrong [receive again the wrong, rv mg] that he hath done: and there is no respect of persons (Colossians 3:25)

Degeneration
Genesis 29–30

Degeneration and backsliding are by no means one and the same. Degeneration begins in almost imper- ceptible ways; backsliding in the scriptural use of the term is a distinct forsaking of what I know of God and a deliberate substitution of something other (cf. Jeremiah 2:13). A point on which we need to be alert is that the presence of the life of the Son of God in us does not alter our human nature; God does remove the disposition of sin, but He demands of us that our human nature puts on the new man, and no longer fashions itself according to its former natural desires. This is what the Apostle Paul means by his use of the term mortify (Colossians 3:5), viz. , destroy by neglect. The spiritual application is that the natural must be sacrificed in order that it may be turned into the spiritual. This law works all through. Esau stands for the natural life refusing to obey. If I maintain my right to my natural self I will begin to degenerate and get out of Gods purpose. What happens in my personal life when I am born from above (rv mg) is that the Son of God is born in me, then comes in the law of the sacrifice of the natural to the spiritual, and the possibility of degeneration. If I refuse to sacrifice the natural, the God-life in me is killed.

1. When the Reward of Sin Is More Sinfulness

Chapter 29 records the retribution Jacob experienced for his own deceitfulnessJacob impersonates Esau; Laban makes Leah impersonate Rachel. Beware what you permit in your relationships because you will be- done-by-as-you-did, and the reason for it is God. The inexorable law is stated in Matthew 7For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. The wrong began with Abraham and Hagar, and it works straight through the maddening maze of things; the only line of extrication is through the Redemption. It is one thing to deceive other people, but you have to get up very early if you want to take in God!

2. Where the Ruin of Sanctity Is Mixed Sanctity (Genesis 30:124)

Jacobs home becomes a place of frictionno man ever gave his heart to two womenyet gleams of joy come to it, every child is regarded by the Hebrew as a gift of God, and the naming of Jacobs children reveals how closely men felt God to be bound up with their history. If you indulge in practises which the Holy Spirit condemns, or in imaginations you have no business to indulge in, the appalling lash of ruined sanctity is that my sin finds me out. If I could only fling the whole thing overboard! but you cannot. God has made the way of transgressors hell on earth. The first mark of degeneration is to deem a wrong state permissible, and then propose it as a condition of sanctity. We only turn in disgust from the details in Gods Book when we forget who we are. Nothing has ever been done by human nature that any member of the human family may not be trapped into doing; the only safeguard is to keep in the light as God is in the light.

3. Where Retribution of Selfishness Turns to Spite (Genesis 30:2543)

Jacob has been robbed, and now he retaliates; his aim is to enrich himself at Labans expense and he suc- ceeds absolutelyAnd the man increased exceed- ingly, and had large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and asses (v. 43 rv). Beware of the inspiration that springs from impulse, because impulse enthrones self-lordship as God. My impulses can never be disciplined by anyone saving myself, not even by God. If my impulses are domineered over by somebody else, that one will find sooner or later that he or she has sat on a safety valvealways a risky thing to do. Unless I discipline my impulses they will ruin me, no matter how generous they may be. The revelation to ourselves in studying other peoples lives ought to make us eager to realise that in me . . . dwelleth no good thing.

The crisis In circumstances
Genesis 31

And the Lord said unto Jacob, Return to the land of thy fathers. Genesis 31:3

No mans destiny is made for him, each man makes his own. Fatalism is the deification of moral coward- ice which arises from a refusal to accept the responsibility for choosing either of the two destined ends for the human racesalvation or damnation. The power of individual choice is the secret of human responsibility. I can choose which line I will go on, but I have no power to alter the destination of that line once I have taken it yet I always have the power to get off one line on to the other.

1. Confusion in Consecration (Genesis 31:410)

Jacob would seem to think that to do things openly when you might do them obscurely is a sign of feeble intelligence; all his outwitting has not taught him wisdom. The apparent piece of humbug which these verses record is not really humbug at all, it is a repetition of what happened in the matter of the birthright, in which Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Esau, all did wrong, and yet out of it came the fulfillment of Gods purpose. The blunder lies in trying to help God fulfill His own word. Gods word will be fulfilled, but if I reach its fulfillment through committing sin, God must crush me in chastisement; the chastisement has no part in His order, it comes in under His permissive will.

2. Call to Conscience (Genesis 31:1113)

Jacob has brought back to him his dream at Bethel when God appeared to him and spoke to him I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst a pillar, where thou vowedst a vow unto Me; now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy nativity (rv ). Jacobs character exhibits human nature as it is better than any other Bible character the high mountain peaks and the cesspools, they all come out. No man is so bad but that he is good enough to know he is bad. Beware of insisting on attainments which are impossible to human nature before the possibilities of the Divine nature have come in demanding of human nature that it should be what it never can be. Jesus Christ died for the ungodly, for the weak, for sinners; if we put the fruits of the Redemption as the reason for Gods forgiveness, we belittle His salvation. Gods call comes, not to human nature, but to conscience, and when a man obeys what God reveals to a thoroughly awakened conscience, then begins the possibility in human nature of the expression of the life of God. To experience conviction of sin is not a cause for misgiving, but an occasion for understanding the impossible thing God has done in the Redemption.

3. Calamity in Estrangement (Genesis 31:1435)

So he fled with all that he had. . . . (v. 21) Jacobs flight and its attendant perplexities is the best unveiling of the unutterable muddle the most acute human wisdom can get into, and serves as another indication of the truth of the revelation that A mans goings are of the Lord ; how then can man understand his way? (rv ). Crises reveal that we don’t believe this, the only God we worship is our own wits. All through, a personal crisis ought to serve as an occasion for revealing the fact that God reigns, as well as compelling us to know our own character. You may think yourself to be generous and noble until a crisis comes, and you suddenly find you are a cad and a coward; no one else finds it out, but you do. To be found out by yourself is a terrible thing. Now Rachel had taken the teraphim . . . (Gene- sis 31:34 rv). In the centre of the family is Rachel, and she outwits Laban and Jacob by stealing the household gods. And Rachel stole the terap him that were her fathers (v. 19 rv). There are only two beings a woman is not too much for, one is God, the other is the devil. A mascot is a talisman of some sort the presence of which is supposed to bring good luck. The persistence of the superstitious element is one of the most indelible stains on the character of otherwise good people, and it abounds in our own day. A re-awakening of superstition always follows on the heels of gross materialism in personal and in national life. When once the mascot tendency is allowed in the temple of the Holy Ghost, spiritual muddle-headedness is sure to result. Beware of excusing spiritual muddle-headedness in yourself; if it is not produced by the Jacob reserve, it is produced by the Rachel wit, and the only way out of the muddle is to walk in the light.

Mahanaim
Genesis 32

Of all the Bible characters Jacob ever remains the best example of the recipient of Gods life and power, simply because of the appalling mixture of the good and the bad, the noble and the ignoble in him. His nobility is never far to seek in the midst of it all. We have the notion that it is only when we are pure and holy that God will appear to us; that Gods blessing is a sign that we are right with Him. Neither notion is true. Our Lord took care to say that God makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends His rain on the just and on the unjust. Gods blessings are not to be taken as an indication of the integrity of the character blessed, yet on the other hand the discern- ment of Gods character is determined entirely by the individual character of the person estimating God. With the merciful Thou wilt show Thyself merciful (Psalm 18:25). The way I will discern Gods charac- ter is determined by my own character. God remains true to His character, and as I grow in integrity I dis- cern Him. Jacobs undeservedness, and the fact that God continually blesses him, are brought out very clearly all through his life.

1. The Venture of the Misgiving Way

And Jacob went on his way . . . (Genesis 32:1)

A sense of personal unworthiness is frequently the reaction of overweening conceit; genuine unworthi- ness has no conscious interest in itself. A genuinely unworthy nature is always possessed of sufficient nobility to face the inevitableAnd Jacob went on his way, that is the noble streak. The study of Jacob under the light of the Spirit of God is not exhilarat- ing, but it is a wholesome cure for spiritual swagger. Whenever you get a real dose of your own unworthi- ness you are never conscious of it because you are so certain you are unworthy that you have the courage of despair. The first thing the Spirit of God does when He comes in is to bring this sense of unworthiness. Most of us suspend judgement about ourselves, we find reasons for not accusing ourselves entirely, conse- quently when we find anything so definite and intense as the Bible revelation we are apt to say it exagger- ates, until we are smitten with the knowledge of what we are like in Gods sight. If you can come to God without a feeling of your own contemptibility it is questionable whether you have ever come. The most humiliating thing in self-examination is that the pas- sion of indignation we indulge in regarding others is the measure of our self detection (see Romans 2:1).

2. The Vision of the Ministering Witnesses

. . . and the angels of God met him. (Genesis 32:1)

Isnt that indiscreet of God! The appearances of God are not so much a testimony to the goodness of the individual as the revelation of God Himself. Every estimate of God must be brought to the standard of the revelation made of Him by our Lord. The appear- ance of the angels of God is apt to be looked upon as the result of disordered nerves, but it is only when external conditions are hopeless to the human outlook that we are in a fit state to perceive the revelation. We are content where we are as long as things have not got to the hopeless condition, and when we do get there we are sentimentally interested in our own pathos Whatever shall I do when this, or that, happens? When it does happen, you will see the angels of God. There is no such thing as dull despair anywhere in the Bible, there is tragedy of the most appalling order, but an equally amazing hopefulnessalways a door deeper down than hell which opens into heaven.

3. The Voice of the Mastering Wonder

And Jacob said when he saw them, This is Gods host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim. (Genesis 32:2 rv )

The sight of the two hosts, the earthly and the heav- enly, is a fitting revelation of Gods rule and govern- ment in this order of things. The reason so few of us see the hosts of God is that we have never let go of things as they are, never let go of our small parochial notions, of the sense of our own whiteness and respectability, consequently there is no room for God at all. Beware of the abortion of Gods grace which prostitutes the Holy Spirit to the personal private use of my own white- ness, instead of allowing God by His majestic grace to keep me loyal to His character in spite of everything that transpires. Faith in God does not mean that He presents me as a museum specimen, but it does mean that however ignoble I may feel, I remain true to Gods character no matter what perplexities may rage. Gods angelic hosts are like His visible mercies, countless. We are economically drunk nowadays, everybody is an economist, consequently we imagine that God is economical. Think of God in Creation! Think of the number of trees and blades of grass and flowers, the extravagant wealth of beauty no one ever sees! Think of the sunrises and sunsets we never look at! God is lavish in every degree. For Gods sake, dont be economical, be Gods child.

Misgiving
Genesis 32:3–21

Misgiving is the pathetic poem of the whole of human life in a word; it signifies the destruction of confidence. Many things will destroy confidence; as in the case of Jacob, cunning and sin will do it, or cowardice; but in every experience of misgiving there is an element which it is difficult to define, and the shallow element is the most difficult. I cant under- stand why I have no confidence in God; the reason may be a matter of digestion, not enough fresh air, or sleep, too much tea something slight. It is the shallow things that put us wrong much more quickly than the big things. The great object of the enemy of our souls is to make us fling away our confidence in God; to do this is nothing less than spiritual suicide. When we experience misgiving because we have sinned there is never any ambiguity as to its cause, the Holy Spirit brings conviction home like a lightning flash.

1. The Appointment of the Messengers (Genesis 32:35)

And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother. (v. 3)

Jacob has had a vision of Gods power, but now he begins to put prudent methods on foot in case God should be obliged to let him down on account of his cunning. We have all got Uriah Heep6 tucked away somewhere, his original form is found in Jacob. Every one of us has the possibility of every type of meanness any human being has ever exhibited; not to believe this is to live in a fools paradise.

2. The Apprehension of the Manuvres (Genesis 32:68)

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed. (v. 7 rv )

Jacob has still no intention of confessing his wrong, and his apprehensiveness on this account leads him to manuvre. Beware of the yes-but, of putting your prudence-crutch under the purpose of God when you find His engineering of things has nearly unearthed your own little bag of tricks. Whenever you debate with a promise of God, watch how you begin to manuvre by your own prudence but you cant sleep at night. Whenever you manuvre it keeps up a ferment because it indicates a determination not to confess where you know you are wrong, and when we experience misgiving on account of wrongdoing which we do not intend to confess we are always inclined to put a crutch under Gods promise Now I see how I can make atonement for my wrong doing. Nothing can act as an atonement for wrong saving an absolutely clean confession to God. To walk in the light with nothing folded up is our conscientious part, then God will do the rest.

3. The Appeal of Misgiving (Genesis 32:912)

Deliver me, I pray Thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him. . . . (v. 11)

Prayer in distress dredges the soul (cf. Psalm 107). It is a good thing to keep a note of the things you prayed about when you were in distress. We remain ignorant of ourselves because we do not keep a spiritual auto- biography. Jacobs misgivings while in the attitude of prayer arise from the fact that while there is that in him which causes him to obey God, he is apprehensive lest God should punish him for his wrongdoing; he has to come to the place where he willingly confesses his guilt before God. Remember. Jacob did not turn back; he was cunning and crafty, but he was not a coward. There was not a strand of the physical coward in Jacob, but he was a moral coward by reason of his guilty con- science. His misgivings arose from his misdeeds. Beware of having plans in your petitions before God; they are the most fruitful source of misgiving. If you pray along the line of your plans misgivings are sure to come, and if the misgivings are not heeded you will pervert Gods purpose in the very thing which was begun at His bidding. God begins a work by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for His own ends entirely and we get caught up into His purpose for that thing, then we begin to introduce our own plans I want this to produce that, and we storm the throne of God along that line; and the first thing God does is not to do it, and we say, That must be the devil. Beware of making God an item, even the principal item, in your programme. Gods ways are curiously abrupt with programmes, He seems to delight in breaking them up.

4. The Atonement for Misdeeds (Genesis 32:1321)

And he lodged there that night: and took of that which he had with him a present for Esau his brother. (v. 13 rv)

Watch your motive for giving presents; it is a good way of discerning what a mean sneak you are capable of being. The giving of presents is one of the touch- stones of character. If your relationship with God is not right in your present-giving, you will find there is an abomination of self-interest in it somewhere, even though you do it out of a warm-hearted impulse; there is a serpent-insinuation in it. It creeps into all our charity unless the life is right with God. The cunning way in which the present is made to Esau is obvious, and yet Jacob is getting near the place where Peniel is possible. Restitution in some form or other is as certain as that God is on His throne. Restitution on the human plane is the evidence that it was God who designed human nature. Watch the almost uncanny accuracy with which the Holy Spirit will bring a thing back Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember- est, the Spirit of God brings it to you direct, . . . go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother. Beware how you deal with yourself when God is educating you down to the scruple, 7 it is nearly always some ridiculously small thing that keeps you from getting through to God. Human nature looks for something big, yet it is some little thing, but behind it is the dis- position of my prideful right to myself. First go. . . .

Penile
Genesis 32:22–32

Peniel means face of God, and the word to Moses standsAnd He said, Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me, and live (Exodus 33:20). This gives peculiar force to Jacobs words, I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved, for Jacob did see God face to face, and he did die, so profound a death that God gave him a new name. Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. That is always the test of the reality of sanctifica- tion, not so much that I have received something, but that I have ceased to be my old self. Through disil- lusionment and shattering Jacob comes out on Gods side with a changed name; we drag the purpose of God through our own plans and change His name. We have to learn to distinguish between the impression made on us by a vision, and identification with the One who gave us the vision. The love of God and His forgiveness are the first things we experience, we are not prepared as yet to recognise His other attributes of holiness and justice because that will mean death to everything that does not partake of Gods nature.

1. The Struggle of Anguish And Jacob was left alone. (Genesis 32:24)

This phrase is significant because in his loneliness Jacob goes through the decisive struggle of his life. We are dealing in this chapter with Jacob the giant, not with the mean man. . . . and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. Jacob tried to strangle the answer to his own prayer; his wrestling represents the human fighting with God. The nobler ones in Gods sight are those who do not struggle but go through without demur. Abraham did not wrestle, neither did Isaac; Jacob struggles for everything. If a man has difficulty in getting through to God we are apt to imagine it is an indication of a fine character, whereas the opposite is true; he is refusing to yield and is kicking, and the only thing God can do is to cripple him. The characteristics exhibited by Jacob are those of Peter before Pentecost, of Saul of Tar- sus before his conversion, a mixture of the dastardly and the heroic, the mean and the noble, all jumbled up. Jacobs wrestling is a profounder thing than the meeting with his brother, there is not one word about Esau in all that follows. Jacob is face to face with his need to acknowledge God and be blessed by Him.

2. The Surrender of All

I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me. (Genesis 32:26)

This is the picture of Jacobs full renunciation. When the supreme crisis is reached in a mixed soul like Jacob something must die, either self-realisation or God. To the simpler nature the crisis need not come at all, but to the mean, the ambitious, and the proud, it must come, and God does not show Himself as gentleness, but as adamant. It means death without the slightest hope of resurrection. What it is that goes to death depends on me. Am I willing to let the wrong in me that cannot dwell with God go to death, or willing to let the life of God die out in me? The crisis may be reached in an apparently placid commonplace life, there may be no external sign of it, but there is an internal crumbling away from all that is pure and holy. Jacob was not like that, he did not refuse to go through the inward struggle of his own nature against the blazing holiness of God.

3. The Solicitation of Appeal

And He said unto him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. (Genesis 32:27)

The confession has to be made: That is my name supplanter; sneak; there is no palliation. Jacob had to get to the place where he willingly confesses before God the whole guilt of usurping the birthright. This is full and profound and agonising repentance. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed (rv). The warrior of God is not the man of muscle and a strong jaw, but the man of un-utterable weakness, the man who knows he has not any power; Jacob is no longer strong in himself, he is strong only in God, his life is no longer marked by striving, but by reliance on God. You cannot imi- tate reliance on God.

Not by wrestling, but by clinging
Shall we be most blest;
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Unconditional surrender
Brings us God’s own peace

Jacobs wrestling means that he did not want to go through the way he knew he must, he had to come to the end of the best of his natural self, and he struggled in order not to. Then he came to the place where his wisdom was crippled for ever; and he halted upon his thigh. The symbol is expressive of what it looks like in the eyes of shrewd worldly wisdom to cast your self unperplexed on God. When we cling to God we learn to kneel for the first time. If you have never been to Peniel you are sure to come across things that will put your human wisdom into a panic; if you have seen God face to face your circumstances will never arouse any panic in you. We run off at a tangentany where but Peniel, where we would see God face to face.

The still small voice
Genesis 33–35

On the surface everything seemed right enough to Jacob in Shechem, but underneath the surface every thing was wrong. Everything is always wrong when the children of God dwell in Shechem instead of at Bethel. This chapter is the unveiling by God of the actuality of sin. And Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem (Genesis 33:18 rv ). One day the hollow Shechem peace was shaken by an earthquake Dinahs fall, and her brothers crime, rudely awakened Jacob; then Gods voice was heard: Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there. To enter into peace for ourselves without becoming either tolerantly un-watchful of other lives or an amateur providence over them, is supremely difficult. God holds us responsible for two things in connection with the lives He brings around us in the apparent haphazard of His providence, viz. , insistent waiting on God for them, and inspired instruction and warning from God to them. The thing that astonishes us when we get through to God is the way God holds us responsible for other lives.

1. The Awakening Voice of God

And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there. . . . (Genesis 35:1) This must be the voice of God; no human voice would ever have said what these words imply. Think what Beth-el meant to Jacob in memoryBeth-el was the geographical place of God to him: How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Beth-el was the place where the Divine promises had been given, and vows made, not yet fulfilled. To go back to Beth- el meant to acknowledge error. The voice of God to an awakened soul, when it has heard the voice before, is never to go forward, but to go back. When the blood runs high and impulse worships at the shrine of the heroic, and the nerves strain for the actual doing of something, we not only do not hear Gods voice, we dont want to hear it. Then when events have produced an earthquake in the personal life, we find that God was not in the earthquake, but in the still small voice, Go to Bethel, and stay there.

2. The Arousing Virtue of God (Genesis 35:24)

Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you . . . (v. 2)

Now that Jacob has heard the voice of God speaking to him he is not afraid to assert his authority in his household. When you come across a man or woman who talks to you from God, you know it by the intu- ition of your spirit and you obey him, scarcely realis- ing what you are doing; on looking back you become aware that it was not a human voice at all but the voice of God. Simulated authority should be laughed at, and it is a downright sensible human duty to do so, but when the authority of God comes to you through anyone, to rebel against it would be to rebel against God. But beware of trying to be consistent to the authority that God gives you over any life on a par- ticular occasion; you know that God used you then in that life and you say, Now I am always going to have this authoritythat is wrong. Authority never comes from you, but from God through you, there- fore let God introduce or withhold as He chooses.

3. The Appreciated Value of God

And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God . . . (v. 3)

Every expansion of heart or brain or spirit must be paid for in added concentration. In the meeting with Esau and the marvellous experience of reconciliation with him, Jacob had an expansion of heart, but he did not pay for it afterwards in concentration; he lived loosely in the exalted peace of the expanded life, and suddenly a terrible tragedy breaks up the whole thing. In our personal lives every expansion of heart, whether it is the awakening of human love, or bereavement, must be paid for by watchfulness; if it is not, looseness, the feeling of all-abroadness, ending in moral collapse, is sure to result. It is because people do not understand the way they are made that all the havoc is produced in the lives of those who really have had times with God and experienced expansions of heart, but they have forgotten to concentrate, and the general feeling of looseness is a sure sign that Gods presence has gone. . . . who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. The implication is, when God answered me and brought deliverance, I forgot all about Him. Jacob settled down in the peace of Shechem, Dinah went to hell, and her brothers to the devil; then God spoke to Jacob. If you allow your mind to be expanded and forget to concentrate on God, the thing that happened in Jacobs domestic life on the big scale will happen in your bodily life on the narrow scale. The vision of what God wants must be paid for by concentration on your part, if it is not, you begin to get all abroad, and in come the little foxes, in comes inordinate affection, in come a hundred and one things that were never there before, and down you go. It is not that these things may happen, they will happen as sure as God is God, unless you watch and pray, that is, concentrate until you are confirmed in the ways of God. Innocence must be transfig- ured into virtue by moral choices. We are all apt to be taken in by a frank nature. The man we call frank says of a wrong thing, Im sorry I did it, and promptly does it again, and we forgive him, while all the time the deepest deviltry goes on. The frank nature brings the glamour of virtue without its real- ity and stings innocence to death. Innocence is not purity, innocence is right for a child, but criminal for a man or woman. Men and women have no business to be innocent, they ought to be virtuous and pure. Character must be attained. Individuality, impulse, and innocence are the husk of personal life. Individuality, if it goes beyond a certain point, becomes pig- headedness, determined in dependence. I have to be prepared to give up my independent right to myself in order that my personality may emerge. Impulse is a subtle snare, always and every time; it may start right, but it is a short-cut to fame or infamy, and it is along the line of impulse that lust and temptation comes. Hold back the impulse and you discipline it into character, and it becomes something altogether different, viz. , intuition. The same thing with innocence; innocence must be transformed into purity by a series of moral choices. There is no virtue that has not gone through a moral choice. A great many of us make virtues out of necessity.

The boy of God
Genesis 37–50

1. Ideals of Seventeen

Joseph, being seventeen years old . . . (Genesis 37:2)

The Bible always incarnates ideals in great personali- ties, and Joseph stands for the magnificent integrity of boyhood; no man thinks so clearly or has such high ideals as in his teens, but unless our ideals find us living in accordance with them they become a mock- ery. The Bible pays no attention to intellectual and emotional conceptions, but only to the actual mani- festation of the ideal. A man may have remarkable conceptions, fine intellectual views, noble ideals and his actual life be beneath contempt, proving that all the high ideals and intellectual conceptions in the world have not the slightest power to bring the life into contact with Reality. There is no room whatever in our Lords teaching for ideals and a stumbling walk of the feet; there must be an at-one-ment between the God-inspired conceptions and actual life, and the only way this can be brought about is by Coming to Me. Joseph was amazingly susceptible to God, and he dreamed dreams (see 37:5, 9). The dreams of the Old Testament are the touch of God on the spirit of a man; always reverence such dreams. And they hated him the more for his dreams, and for his words (37:8). The hatred produced by a sense of superiority in another is the most venomous. This gives the inner meaning of our Lords words: They hated Me with- out a cause. Beware what you brood on in secret for the fateful opportunity will come when God and the devil will meet in your soul, and you will do according to your brooding, swept beyond all your control. This is a law as sure as God is God. The fateful opportu- nity came to the brethren who hated JosephAnd when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. Beware of saying, Oh well, it doesnt matter much what I think about in secret; it does, for the oppor- tunity will come when what you think about in secret will find expression and spurt out in an act. The Bible always speaks of sin as it appears in its final analysis. Jesus does not say, You must not covet because it will lead to stealing; He says, You must not covet because it is stealing. He does not say, You must not be angry with your brother because it will lead to murder; He says, You must not be angry with your brother because it is murder. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15). When the cli- max of these things is reached we begin to see the meaning of Calvary.

2. His Strength Was as the Strength of Ten

And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. (Genesis 39:2)

A life with presence, i. e. , an uncommon spirit, redeems any situation from the commonplace. It may be cleaning boots, doing house work, walking in the street, any ordinary thing at all, but immediately it is touched by a man or woman with presence it ceases to be commonplace. The rarest asset to a godly life is to be practically conscientious in every situation. But the Lord was with Joseph, . . . and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison (39:21). Josephs adaptability was superb. Adaptability is not tact tact is frequently nothing but the moral counterpart of hypocrisy. Adaptability is the power to make a suitable environment for oneself out of any set of circumstances. Most of us are all right if we can live in our own particular setting, with our own crowd, but when we get pitchforked somewhere else either we cannot adapt ourselves, or we adapt our- selves too easily and lose God. Joseph did not lose God; God was with Joseph in Egypt as in Canaan; with him in the prison as in the house of his master. If I simply delight in a godly atmosphere and refuse to appropriate God for myself, when I have to leave the godly atmosphere I will find myself God-less; then my natural adaptability becomes the adaptability to degenerate.

3. Complete Steel

How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? (Genesis 39:9)

The phrase complete steel is Miltons definition of chastity, and is peculiarly appropriate to Joseph. Personal chastity is an impregnable barrier against evil. Like virtue, chastity is not a gift, but an attainment of determined integrity. Unsoiledness may be nothing more than necessity, the result of a shielded life, and is no more chastity than innocence is purity. Virtue and chastity are forged by me, not by God. You cant drown a cork, and you cant defile Joseph. Four times over in this chapter is the statement made, the Lord was with Joseph. It is the presence of God that is the secret of victory always. The fear of the Lord creates an atmosphere in which impure thoughts and unholy desires die a natural death. But so did not I, because of the fear of God (see Nehemiah 5:15). Joseph knew that the God whom he worshiped was of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. The outstanding value of the Bible is that it makes shameful things appear shameful because it never analyses them. The discovery of the desperate recesses in the human heart is the greatest evidence of the need for the Redemption. The experiences of life awaken possibilities of evil that make you shudder, and as long as we remain under the refuge of innocence we are fools. The appalling things revealed in human lives confirm the words of the great Master of the human heart. Our Lord did not say, into the heart of man these things are injected, but, from within, out of the heart of men, proceed . . . and then follows the terrible catalogue. We ought to get into the habit of estimat- ing ourselves by this rugged standard. The important thing to remember is that we are better trusting the revelations of Jesus Christ than our own innocence. The only thing that safeguards is the Redemption. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. (Genesis 45:7 rv) That was Josephs high vocation, to preserve life. God brings His purposes to pass in spite of all men may do, and often through what they do, and He will utilise the very things which look as if they were going dead against their fulfilment; God goes steadily on and involves us in the fulfilment.

So now it was not you that brought me hither, but God. (45:8)

But as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it unto good. (50:20 rv ).