OH JACOB, OH ISRAEL tremendous turnaround...all of grace coyright Doug Blair, Waterloo, ON, 2016
Castle Keep
(Warwick castle) The truth you have kept As the stronghold’s one treasure The Ages would change it They scarce know its measure And mortals would flinch As Circumstance calls But you Lord are constant Your rule never falls The clean and the good Are extolled in your Book And widow and orphan Alone to you look
Compassion unequaled Whatever the cost A rock for the drowning A home for the lost And this brings great comfort For men are mere dust And princes just passing While you keep our trust The heart of your Castle Intact for all time A truth ever righteous I thrill to call mine. Psalm 146: 5 Happy
is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God:
6 Which
made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:
The Context
Jacob's name translated “cheat” or “supplanter”. Imagine parents making such a call for a child! And cheat he did. Tricked a gluttonous elder brother out of his birthright for a single savoury meal. Tricked an elderly father into granting him the blessing rightly due to Esau by disguising himself. Tricked father-in-law Laban into a scheme whereby careful breeding of types of sheep in the flock led to a large share of livestock for Jacob. But then in a time of difficulty there came an encounter with God's angel. A wrestling match of signal proportion. “I will not let you go unless you bless me and tell me who you are.” Eventually the angel wounded his leg and it was over. The man was told that he had found favour with God through his importunity, and would thereafter be name Israel (a prince who has found favour with God). And this is the way with God. He knows all about us; brings us to wit's end corner; brings us to repentance; leaves us with confirming evidence of a radical change in standing and a “limp in the leg”.
Thou Worm, Jacob
“Fear not, thou worm Jacob…I will make thee a threshing instrument with teeth” ().Isa. 41:14-15 Could any two things be in greater contrast than a worm and an instrument with teeth? The worm is delicate, bruised by a stone, crushed beneath the passing wheel; an instrument with teeth can break and not be broken; it can grave its mark upon the rock. And the mighty God can convert the one into the other. He can take a man or a nation, who has all the impotence of the worm, and by the invigoration of His own Spirit, He can endow with strength by which a noble mark is left upon the history of the time. And so the “worm” may take heart. The mighty God can make us stronger than our circumstances. He can bend them all to our good. In God’s strength we can make them all pay tribute to our souls. We can even take hold of a black disappointment, break it open, and extract some jewel of grace. When God gives us wills like iron, we can drive through difficulties as the iron share cuts through the toughest soil. “I will make thee,” and shall He not do it? —Dr. J. H. Jowett
That Ladder
(Helpful entry in Come Ye Apart by J. R. Miller)
“I am the way& no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
A way always leads somewhere: Jesus is the way from earth to heaven, and also from heaven to earth. Through Him we get to God, and through Him God comes to us. He is the true and only ladder whose foot rests on the earth, and whose top reaches up to the very glory of God. In His humanity Jesus comes down to the lowest depths of human need and sorrow. Had He been God only, and not man, He could not have done this. The incarnation was the letting of the ladder down until it rested in the deepest valleys. There is now no spot of shame or guilt in this world from which there is not a ladder of light, with its celestial steps leading upward to God and heaven.. For, while Christ’s humanity brings the ladder down to earth’s places of sorest need, His divinity carries the ladder up past the shining stars into the very midst of the glory of God. On one page of the New Testament we find Jesus on a cross, dying in darkness and shame, between criminals. We open another page, and we see that same Jesus in the midst of the heavenly brightness, wearing still the wound marks, but crowned in glory. Behold the ladder from earth to heaven! A ladder is a way for feet to climb: Christ is the way, therefore, by which sinners can go up out of their sins to the purity and blessedness of heaven. One thing to mark specially is that there is but one way. Christ is the only Mediator. We can enter the Father’s family only through Him. Grace can come to us only through Him. There is, then, no choice of ways: if we do not go by this one way we can never reach home. Nor must we forget that a way is meant to be walked in. We
must put our feet on this ladder and go up rung by rung until we reach the topmost step, which will be heaven.
Isaiah Forty-Three
Don’t you get it? I am rescue And a shield from fire And torrents And persistent Calling hither. You are mine. You have faltered In the strange gods Wayward children Prone to mimic.
Just as Jacob Tried to flee my Grip Divine. Cease the struggle I am ravished By the beauty Still kept hidden. Out of bondage To be gathered In due time.
He Remembers It All and Loves
Isaiah 43: 1But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. 2When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. 3For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. My wife got this scripture with particular force today. It has always comforted us to see how God remembers the man as "cheat" and as "prevailing prince", for these are the meanings of the two names Jacob and Israel. Could it be that the Lord foresaw the patriarch in both of these dispositions. First as the scheming manipulator who robbed his brother Esau of rights of primogeniture, and robbed his future father-in-law Laban of flocks. Next He saw the vulnerable man wrestling with the angel 'til break of day and refusing to let go until the angel had given his
name and visit's purpose and personal blessing. God now speaks of both men, the same man, in endearing terms of love and support. Past shortcomings are not mentioned. It is the future...the future, which matters. The true Israel of God. A new man inherits this future. He takes with him thankfully a remembrance in his limping leg, the leg wounded by the angel in the night of his change. In a fallen world the Lord cannot guarantee an easy ride. There will be, however, a "coming through". Galatians 6: 15For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. 16And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. (Painting by J. Toulouse-Lautrec)
As the Firstborn
A wonderful foreshadowing of Gospel delight appears in Genesis 48. Joseph has brought his two sons by an Egyptian wife to his father Jacob for the traditional blessing. These boys, Ephraim and Manasseh, are half-breeds, not fully of the lineage of Abraham, God's friend. Their grandfather says the following: 5 And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. He has chosen to give them the same standing and favour as his first born. They have simply submitted themselves to his gracious blessing. We are told in Romans 8 that we have been adopted and given the position of joint heirs with God's "firstborn", Jesus. He looks upon us with the same eyes of satisfaction and love which He casts upon His victorious obedient Son. This realization should free us from condemnation and any sense of feebleness. We understand more clearly now Paul's triumphant declaration in 1 Corinthians 1:
27But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29That no flesh should glory in his presence. 30But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 31That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. One more thing to be added about Genesis 48. The grandfather places his hands upon the heads of the two boys while making the pronouncement, the right hand upon the younger and the left upon the older. Joseph attempts to correct this, according to a law of primogeniture, but Jacob remains firm in his decision. The child of mercy and not of law shall have the greater blessing. It is in the grandfather's sovereign discretion. He has crossed over his two arms in making the blessing as he has, foreshadowing the work of the Cross at Calvary. (Painting by Benjamin West)
Jacob
I bless you sons And gather feet up Around me in my bed. So little time until The final lowering Of my head. And how I see That naught a promise Of my God’s good will
Has failed me In this mortal mill. The wheat is ready. The garner waits. And I scarce notice All the lies and hates That marred my trek. The leg still hurts. An angel’s work That left my schemes A wreck. Wrestled, I did With the Heavenlies Til break of day. Lost, but came out A Prince From meanest clay.