6. The Life Of Jacob - The Man Who Fought God Series

From Adam to Malachi

6. THE LIFE OF JACOB- THE MAN WHO FOUGHT GOD

Gen. 25-49

"The God before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has led me all my life long to this very day, the angel who has re¬deemed me from all evil, bless the lads"

(Gen. 48:15-16).

Jacob was telling his grandsons, I hope God will be with you as he has been with me. Jacob was not a good person. He was a scoundrel all the way. He was a miserable young person who became a mature man of God

He saw God's hand in the UPS AND DOWNS of life. He ran and fought all of his life. He fought with and ran from Esau. He fought with and ran from Laban. He fought with and ran from God.

Jacob said God "led" him, but the deeper truth is that God chased him. J. Oswald Sanders says Jacob gives us a glowing example of God's "undiscouraged perseverance with an unlovely character."

In Jacob we see the persistent REFUSAL of God to give up on us. God COMES TO US in sin as He did to Adam and Eve. He is the shepherd who looks for every lost sheep. (Luke 15). Aren't you glad God didn't give up on Jacob and on you? In his life we see him:

A. LEARNING TO LIE (25:19-28:22)

The Clutch

Chapter one covers forty years, which in our life span would be our first twenty years. The second-born of twins, he came out of Rebecca’s womb holding the heel of his brother Esau as though to say, "You are not the firstborn. I want those rights and privileges."

The name "Jacob" means "deceiver”. We would call him "a heel." This is probably were that derogatory term comes from. His philosophy was "what's yours is mine and I'll take it.”

When his brother was famished and asked him for food Jacob sold it to him for his birthright as the firstborn (25:29-34). Years later, his father Isaac, sick, blind and thinking he was dying, was preparing to bless Esau with the rights of the firstborn, Jacob dressed up like him and told his father he was Esau and stole the blessing.

The Cost

After the sin comes the FEAR. Esau, in vengeance, planned to kill him, so his mother sent Jacob to live with her brother Laban. He started out all alone and never saw his mother again. Sin brought LONELINESS. On his first night away from home, in the rugged mountains at Bethel, near Jerusalem, the frightened fugitive lay down beneath the stars and put his head on a rock for a pillow.

Sin always drives us out, away from our home, away from our friends and away from our joy. Adam and Eve were driven out from the Garden. Cain killed Abel and was driven out from the presence of the Lord. Peter denied Jesus and went out and wept bitterly. Judas betrayed Christ and went out and hanged himself. Sin drives husbands and wives and parents and children further apart in the home. It also drives us away from our true self. The Prodigal came home when he “came to himself”. (Luke 15)

The Contact

Jacob found more than loneliness that night. He found the LORD. He saw a ladder going up to heaven and God was talking to him from the top of it. He told the frightened cheater He would build a huge nation out of his descendants - as He promised Abraham. (Gen. 12) But the greatest thing He said was, “I will be with you wherever you go and bring you back home safely. (28:10-15).

What a God! Here we have a low-down man in the lowest time of his life and what does God do? He says He will take this pile of scrap lumber and use it to build His church. There is little to like about Jacob. He is a sneak, a cheat, a liar and a mama's boy. If we were going to select someone to be the head of a nation or a religion, the last person we would choose would be him. Yet Jacob was the one God chose. That give hope to all of us.

The Apostle Paul told the church members at Corinth, not many of you are wise and learned. (1 Cor. 1:26, 27 NIV) It is not that God doesn’t choose the wise and learned. Men like C.S. Lewis have blessed the church in ways most of us cannot. The wise and learned, all too often, are too proud to admit their need of God

Salvation is simple and purely and completely a matter of undeserved grace - WHAT WE NEED BUT DON'T DESERVE. It is one of the few things in life we cannot seize with our strength, appropriate with our intelligence, or earn with our best efforts. The millionaire who owns the franchise must stand side by side, as a fellow sinner and a Christian brother, with the illiterate janitor who sweeps the peanut shells and cigarette butts out of his stadium.