In this sermon, the speaker begins by expressing his foolishness and the need to move furniture closer together. He then mentions a Jewish brother named Samuel who was expected to attend the sermon. The speaker emphasizes the importance of pleasing God and delighting in His word. He also discusses the story of Jacob and how his mistaken notions led to a crisis in his life. The speaker concludes by reminding the audience that nothing is too difficult for God and that He is the ultimate victor.

He will teach us all new ways, and we will walk in his path, and the world shall not walk from his side. The word of the Lord shall be used by every man, and he will teach us all new ways, and we will walk in his path. And he will teach us all new ways, and we will walk in his path. And we will walk in it with you And we will walk in it with you And we will walk in it with you And we will walk in it with you And the glory of the Lord comes up again And the world is wonderful again And we will walk in it with you And we will walk in it with you And we will walk in it with you And the glory of the Lord comes up again And the world is wonderful again And the glory of the Lord comes up again Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. Thank you. I will lift up my hands in your name I will lift up my hands in your name Lai, lai, lai, lai, lai, lai Lai, lai, lai, lai, lai, lai, lai Thy lovingkindness is better than mine Thy lovingkindness is better than mine I lift up my hands in your name I lift up my hands in your name I lift up my hands in your name Lai, lai, lai, lai, lai, lai, lai Lai, lai, lai, lai, lai, lai Lai, lai, lai, lai, lai, lai There's a nice chair over here. Somebody around my age brought me this special cushion. I was going to die for it, but I don't qualify. I said I was going to die for it, but I don't qualify. Oh, there you are. Praise the Lord. Is there a Samuel here who has come from out of town? A Jewish brother that we had hoped we would make it this morning? Okay. Well, Lord, privileged to again stand before your people. And I love, my God, the way in which it pleases you to bring forth through me what you will, govern this mouth again so that your own soul will be gratified. Lord, that's our first concern, that you yourself will be delighted, be gratified in your own soul for what you hear, my God, coming forth, because it's ordained, and that your saints will be delighted also. If you're pleased, we're pleased. And we love your word, my God, and it's important to us. It's critical, crucial. So may we hear from your heart. We thank and give you praise again for the privileged occasion with your saints and under this roof. The happy assembly of your people. In Jesus' name. Amen. I think I can do this sitting. How does that feel? Anything washed for that? Well, somewhere between my shower or wherever, the thought of Jacob came to my spirit, and it seems to be remaining. So I think that the Lord wants us to take a peek at our patriarchal father. Notice that I said Allah. Paul in Corinthians, addressing Greeks who have come to the faith of the God of his fathers, says something about, as our ancestors also. He includes them in the Alba that includes also Hebrews in the same faith. So you just need to let that come into your consciousness, that you who were once far off and without God and without hope in the world have been brought nigh by the blood of Israel's Messiah into the covenants and hopes and promises of that nation and into the commonwealth of the nation itself. Peter speaks to the Gentile believers and says, now conduct yourself in a way before the Gentiles as if they themselves are not that anymore. They have taken on a new designation. They've come into the family of God, the commonwealth of God's people. It's not you've become Jewish. There's no big deal about that. You've come into the Hebraic faith and been grafted in, actually into that root. Their promises, their hopes are yours, and their faith is yours. And so your identification with them as being one with yourself is different from the church seeing itself as an entity separate from and other than Israel. That does not displace them. We are not the Israel of God at their expense. We are the Israel of God with them, more properly and more truly spiritually than they presently are, but will become because of the jealousy to which they will be moved when they see you exhibiting the kind of fruit that should have been their product have been grafted into their own root and not be broken off. Got the picture? Okay, class dismissed. Okay, Genesis. Just two episodes critical in the consideration of Jacob becoming Israel. Chapter 28. I don't think it's probably too great an exaggeration to say that all of us are either the one or the other, Jacob or Israel. It's not an exaggeration to say that the present state of Israel is more probably Jacob than it is Israel. It's en route to becoming Israel, but it's not going to become it any more easily than its patriarchal father before it. Israel is not an automatic designation. It's an ultimate statement of a spiritual designation that's not yours by virtue of birth, but by acquisition, by relationship with the God of Israel. So it's a very precious term. We mustn't bandy that about as if it is speaking only genealogically to a certain nation. The Israel of God, the people of God, who have come into a very particular relationship with God and take on his own identification. Well, Jacob was not that. Everybody knows what the name Jacob means, right? Schema, supplanter, wise aleck, conniver. He had the right intentions. He desired the right thing, but he didn't know how to obtain it. He schemed to get it and therefore offended his brother Esau and had to flee for his very life for having rubbed his brother the wrong way. Does that bear any correspondence with today's particular political situation in the Middle East? They have the right intention, but they're not going to acquire it by scheming, wheeling or dealing. If they seek that, they're going to chafe and bring their brother to a boil that will threaten their own existence, and that's exactly what we're seeing now. Jacob had to flee then, and Jacob will have to flee now. That was something of last night's subject. So it's a remarkable parallel. I can't say enough for this, and this is beyond symbolism. This is a paradigm. You know that word? Like a pattern of an ultimate and unfailing kind. So not only is this true about present Israel, who is really Jacob, but it's unhappily so much the statement of ourselves. As I tried to say last night, our hopes for Israel as a state, that they should somehow make it and succeed, is very much the projection of our own desire for ourselves. It has the consideration of success rather than the consideration of glory. That, by the way, is part of the definition of Jacob. Jacob is not concerned with the glory of God. He may acknowledge God, and he may be respectful, but he's not yet come to that state where the central thing of his being is the jealousy and the desire for the glory of God. That's what makes Jacob into an Israel. That is what defines Israel as Israel. That the foremost purpose for being is the glory of God. And you see why the church is itself so much more Jacob than it is Israel. Something has to happen. And God sets the thing in motion and brings Jacob to crisis. And so he had to flee, and in his flight, in verse 10 of chapter 28, Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night because the sun had set. I can't run over this. The sun had set on Jacob. That's more than just a chronological, you know, adjust your watches. It's a statement of a man who is in crisis and decline that issues out of his Jacob life and his mistaken notion of how to obtain desirable ends. The sun has set on that. Well, praise God that happened to me 35 years ago. The sun set on Jacob. I had attained professional status. My Jewish mother could probably be proud of her son. She couldn't say, my son the doctor. Neither could she say that my son the evangelist. So, but the sun set on that. It's interesting how the Lord will allow a certain measure of success and the attainment of what you desire. And then having obtained it, it turns to ashes in your mouth and even sets the thing by which the shade of night falls on it. You don't enjoy it. And you don't know what you are pursuing. So, taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and laid down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give it to you and your offspring, and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west, to the east, and to the north, and to the south, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. What a precious interlude. A mighty dream of great portent. And even Jacob's response is prophetic. The Lord is in this place and I knew it not. That may be a statement of the church to a great degree. He's in the place but we don't know it to the sense that we have an awe and a fear and a reverence for the God who is in this place because this place is the gate of heaven. And in fact, there is no other gate. Unless men find the route to heaven through the house of God, they'll not find it at all. So all of this deserves uttermost attention and it wouldn't be too much to take a week and go over every aspect of this enormous dream God given and the Lord was beside him. What a remarkable thing. Now being the students of scripture that you are, what is significant about the way in which the Lord addressed Jacob from the very beginning? God being candid and utterly truthful, I'm the God of your father Abraham and of Isaac and the land upon which you lie, I will give it to you. What is being said there that is omitted? You Bible students, you exegetes, who draw out the meaning from the scriptures, you're getting a zero for the day. What's being omitted? What's being omitted? Read that again. The personality of Jacob himself. No. Reprimand. Huh? Reprimand. Reprimand. Reprimand? Well, it constitutes a kind of reprimand. It's a most significant omission. I'm the God of your father Abraham and of Isaac and the land whereon thou liest. What did he leave out? He said, I'm not your God yet. He's got all the right pedigree. He's got all the genealogy. He couldn't have a descent more honorable than coming from Abraham and Isaac. But the God of his fathers is not yet his God. It's not automatic. Something has got to happen to establish that relationship. And I praise God that he doesn't gloss over this or just give a kind of religious, anxious statement to pacify Jacob. The omission is enormously significant. And I think that Jacob was so much Jacob that he missed it. I don't think he was aware of how significant that omission was. But by the time we finish this morning, we'll see how Jacob becomes Israel and how the God of his fathers becomes his God, in fact. And what it takes to come to that. But before we see that conclusion, we need further to ponder what Jacob does having received this dream. His statement is precious. Sure, the Lord is in this place, and I didn't know it. How awesome is this place, full of warmth. This is none other than the house of God. And what is it? There's no building. It's only a stone upon which he laid his head. But this place where the revelation and the dream comes in God's presence and statement is the house of God. So maybe that's something that we need to reconsider. The house is not an issue of architecture. It's an issue of presence. It's an issue of revelation. And so he was right in what he said. Jacob is a prophet and responded very impressively in saying those things that this is the gate of heaven. Why? Because the ladder is rooted in the earth and ascends to heaven. Oh, I'm so happy for that. I wouldn't like a gate that is ethereal and removed from the earth. I like it where the rungs go right into the earth that it might ascend to heaven and that God is willing to come down into that terra firma and the reality of it so that men may have a way up. So everything about this is very precious, very revealing. So Jacob in verse 18 rose early in the morning and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel, which means the house of God. But the name of the city was Luz at the first. Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to put on so that I come again to my father's house in peace. Then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will surely give one tenth to you. Amen. How do you like that? How do you like a Jacob prayer? Can there be anything more revealing than his own prayer? And how much is it revealing of us? Of the one tenth that I will give you, if you give me. This is a transaction. This has Jacob as its center. It's a commercial contract, which maybe is more generous than what many are willing to do, but it reveals Jacob as Jacob. As long as Jacob remains Jacob, and this is his mentality, and he has himself as the centerpiece in the new relationship with God who has been revealed to him, there will be no glory in that house and no fulfillment of the purposes of God through that house. Clearly, Jacob has got to become Israel. The people of the Middle East have got to become Israel. The Church of Jesus needs to become Israel because it is so much a reflection of this Jacob mentality of so much given for so much received. Playing it close to the vest. Self-interest. If God will be with me in the way that I will go. Brother. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever prayed, and more than once, Lord, if you will do this for me, I will do that for you? Have you ever prayed, if you give me an ability or courage or words, then I will speak them or do them? That's a commonplace. That's still the place of Jacob and not yet Israel. Why do you say that, Art? Because it still visualizes the relationship of two distinct separate entities, one apart from the other, and that what we think is the relationship to which we're being called is a nice kind of cooperative partnership by which we retain our identity separate from God and want only his help. It's not the mean thing, we want to do well, but we want to do it with his help. Do you like that? What do you mean, do I like it? Is there another way? Yes, there is. And until you find it, you're still in the Jacob place. The other way is, is not you asking God for help in which you will then give him a dividend, but that you can't anymore distinguish or desire where Jacob ends and where God begins. That the life of Jacob is the life of God and the purpose of God is the purpose of Jacob. So much so that Jacob is no longer Jacob and he requires a new name. So this is remarkably revealing of a religious mentality that I believe pervades the church today. Not just the most commonplace expressions, but its best expression is still Jacob transacting with God because the church and its members are unwilling to forsake their own identity and want only to succeed for God on the basis of what he will give them that will enable them to succeed and for which they will give him this return. Amen. Is that right? Are you embarrassed? No. I love this. If God will be with me, that's still the center of the Jacob life. He was a man who desired spiritual things and the inheritance of God and found a way through deceit to obtain it from his brother. But it was still me, still operating, still scheming for me. And Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus is revealed in his glory with Moses and Elijah, it is for us to be here. Let us build you three booths. He's still a Jacob. So, so long as there's an us, so long as there's a me as the foremost consideration that is respectful toward God, wants benefit from God and intends to give God some return, we're still not in the ultimate place of the designation of Israel that glorifies God and is radically different than other than this kind of Jacob thing. Now, saints, this is not my thought this morning that I should be speaking this. It came to me in the bathroom and in lieu of no other inspiration I'm speaking it. So it must be that there are some Jacobs in our midst who need to hear this and keep me in this way that I go, the way that I will choose, the way that gratifies me. It's not going to be grossly sinful. It will be respectful and honorable and ethical and moral, but it's still the way that I go, the way that I will choose to go. You know what I love about Jacob and about Jews in general? They're very forthright. They don't mince words. They don't pretty it up. What they are is what they are and what you see is what you get. And I love that. This is absolutely candid. There couldn't have been a better portrait of the statement of the condition of a man who though he had the most distinguished ancestry was yet in himself, not in any way in a place with God as were his fathers. And I will surely give one tenth to you. Sport. Well, Jacob continued on his journey and you know all the rest of what happened. But I want to just focus in now on the turning point where Jacob has his name changed. Something radical happens to the man that he can become the father of a nation of sons, sons of Israel. And that's in chapter 32. Jacob is returning to his homeland. He's acquired two wives and handmaidens and flocks and herds and all kinds of possessions and servants. And he learns that Esau is coming to meet him. Whatsoever man sows, that too shall he reap. And it's a day of comeuppance. And how to avoid this. And so Jacob is still Jacob scheming, breaking up his possessions into bands and sending a servant with every portion. So if you meet my brother Esau, tell him that his brother Jacob is coming behind. But this is a gift for him that will placate him. Maybe the Oslo Agreement and the concessions that are being made to the PLO today are exactly in this spirit and this mentality. It's not a calling on the God who had already revealed himself some years before at Bethel, but still crying out to God, Lord help me, but at the same time making provision himself out of his own human cunning. That's still Jacob. You're not Israel until you've pulled out all the stops and God is your total and utter dependency. And if you perish, you perish. But you are not going to condescend to your own wit. You're not going to scheme and wheel and deal. You're not going to push him. You're not going to have a safety provision. What do you call it? An escape hatch. An extra bank account that if God does not come through, you're still not left to pauper. That's still Jacob. God is wanting this utter and total being thrust upon him. And he's created the crisis by which that can come. But it's interesting to observe how deep the Jacob thing is, even in crisis. There's this inveterate and unconscious continuation of scheming, wheeling, dealing out of oneself to engineer yourself through the situation. He's not yet come to the place. It raises the question, how far will God go to get Jacob to become this realm? Very far. So, verse 22 of chapter 32, the same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children across the ford of the river Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone. The King James says that much better. He sent over all that he had and Jacob was all alone. Are you getting that? Are you pondering that? He sent over all that he had. There is no reserve. Every last thing is required and he was left alone. Because we're wanting to ask, what are the conditions for which God waits? That he will wrestle with a man, a nation, or a church to bring that one into such a relationship with him that transforms everything. And the condition is, you have to send over all that you have. So, if you can picture me 35 years ago, I traveled for 14 months with a backpack, a small one, and lived out of it for 14 months. Everything was reduced to what I could carry on my back. I had one wash and wear shirt and I don't know, a few pair of socks, whatever it was. But that's symbolic of the kind of reduction that's required and for which God waits. That we don't hedge ourselves around the kinds of things that will insert themselves between God and ourselves. There's got to be an abandon. Whatever it is that we're holding onto as reserve has got to be sent ahead. It's got to be parted from us and we have to come to a place where we are all alone. I don't know that Jacob knew that he was fulfilling the kind of requirement for which God waits, but he did it. He was left all alone. Sounds like as thorough a stripping as a man can experience. But so precious is what is going to take place now that it's worth it all. And that God will allow success to give the man herds and cattle and maids and servants and wives and all of that prosperity only to bring them to a place where he's required to send it over. It's not unlike the present Israel that he gives it a 50-year history, allows it to become a substantial state in a high-tech society, army, nuclear facility, all that kind of stuff, only that it's to be passed over. They're not to employ it. Jacob was not to employ it. However he wanted to use it, to placate, it will not serve. He's got to be parted from it and come to a place of utter desolation and aloneness is the condition for God. And maybe that's why many of us remain in the Jacob state, where our lives are hedged about by dependencies and loyalties and identifications and things in which we have investment. And God is a God who's total. I don't know why that should astonish us. He's waiting for man totally. Moses had to come up to God in that condition. He was a prince in Egypt and a prince of Israel. He came from the priestly line. He was a Levite. He was erudite, learned, trained. He was a man of remarkable ability and God called him up to the Mount. Come up unto me and be there and I will give you the tablets of the Lord that you may teach them. Forty days ascent to the Mount and seven days at the crest in the mountain wreathed with smoke before on the fortieth day God could call to him to come up unto me and be there. Don't come up for the tablets. Don't come up for your ministry and what advantage you're going to obtain by receiving this from me. Come up unto me and be there. Really be there. And if you have anything that will in any way interfuse itself and serve as a barrier whether it's your ideology, your theology, your denominational identification and loyalty, you stay in the smoke for six days. On the seventh day I'll call you up. This is another message. A precious one. And I wouldn't be able to speak it except that I had actually been in the smoke. Not on the Mount but in a building on fire at Ben Israel where at three o'clock in the morning we could hear the crackling of the smoke and we had a run out and that building went up like a whew! And on the marble top of the kitchen I had laid my box of master tapes all these gorgeous, exquisite messages and my wife had her pocketbook on the countertop. We had come up from Kansas City where we had lived for some months and we came out of the building and she said why don't you go in and get my pocketbook? I said sure, no sweat. I know that house like the palm of my hand. I went down on my hands and knees pushed open the front door the distance from here to that top was about just like it is now and I went into the building and was lost. Completely lost. Completely disoriented. I didn't know where I was not only could I not find the counter I couldn't find the door through which I had just entered. I can't say enough I praise God for the experience but I want to tell you that smoke is the most disorienting phenomenon that there is and God put Moses in it for six days before he allowed him to come into his presence on the seventh. He smoked him out of any last vestige of Moses' ability whether Jewish or Egyptian even the correct knowledge of God had to be smoked out because now he was going to come into contact and into union with very God himself. Isn't it remarkable that even a correct knowledge can be a barrier to God? That we can hide behind our correct doctrines our denominational statements the smoke to remove every six days that number is the number of man on the seventh day the number of completion he came into the presence of God come up unto me, Moses and be there then I will give you but until you are there in all that you are stripped and the utter essence of what you are as a man without distinction in the raw grit of your humanity facing me in the totality of my divinity I'll not give you the tablets you're not fit to bear them or teach them or to employ them I'm not just an intermediary along the way to provide you with the enablement for your ministry I am your ministry the tablets of the law are the statement of what I am in myself as God and how can you be a purveyor and communicate them and don't know the one who is the lawgiver himself come up unto me and be there Jacob had to be there with the same God only the encounter was structured differently but has the same very essence for Moses, for Jacob for us and for the Israel that has yet to become Israel or it will not bless all the families of the earth this statement to Jacob that your people will be like a proliferation of sand east and west and north and south and they will bless all the families of the earth yet waits its fulfillment and it cannot be fulfilled as a Jacob people they've got to know God and communicate him as he in fact is and not as one supposes him to be and if that's the requirement of the Israel that has yet Jacob there what of ourselves what has our witness constituted if we ourselves have not come in to the radical communion with God and we ourselves still separate entities if God will help me in the way that I will go my ministry, and give me what I need for it I'll give him back a good return whether we have never actually audibly articulated that or not that is the unspoken statement of the great majority of God's people and the church itself at large it's Jacob, it's not yet Israel that's why crisis is coming since so he sent them across the stream and likewise everything he had, Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak when the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him then he said, let me go for the day is breaking, this is the man capital M, but Jacob said I will not let you go unless you bless me whatever we can say about Jacob to denigrate him and his character and his scheming and wheeling and dealing and all these kinds of things the one virtue that maybe is a key to ultimate salvation and redemption is I will not let you go now that you're this near and I sense who and what you are I'll not let you go this tenacity, this demand for ultimate blessing from God that will not be content with just a cheapy passing thing is maybe the most significant thing that is instinctive in Jacob and is the key to the becoming of the Israel of God I will not let you go unless you bless me and so he said to him what is your name, he said, Jacob what did he ask him that doesn't a man know his own name but of course unlike our present generation, names then were fraught with meaning Jacob is exactly the statement of the man and his character what God was calling him to review before he changes that name is one last review of what your name means and what your conduct has been what your character, what your mode of living and being has been till this moment, rub it in, rub your face into the grit of that what is your name how have you proceeded till now then the man said, you shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel for you have striven with God and with man and have prevailed that's what the name Israel itself means, an overcomer one who has striven with God and with man a prince with God and with men then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name he said, why is that you ask my name and there he blessed him I've never thought about this before whether Jacob's asking was a condition for the blessing that there's something significant in wanting to know the name of the one with whom he's wrestling was wanting to know the essence of the one with whom he's wrestling, he was not just looking for a tag is your name Jack Bill, I mean how do I, what's the convenient thing that I have to speak to identically, he wants to know what is in your name you've had me to reflect what's in my name, what's in your name I want to know you as you are I will not let you go that's the blessing that I want, I don't want just prosperity, I want an appropriation, an acquisition of yourself as God then there he blessed him, then he blessed him, and what a strange blessing, he touched the socket of his thigh and he crippled the man, he was permanently disabled for the rest of his life call that a blessing how many do we have in this room this morning who limp and I'm not talking about a physical disablement, I mean something much more deep than that I mean that God has touched you in the nexus of your own authority, power, and ability I remember I visited a Jewish millionaire in New Jersey, I took my son David because he had a stable of horses, race horses, and he had become a believer, and we had met he invited me to spend the night and we had an intensive evening about the lordship of Jesus and how far this Jewish new convert would go, he said, Artie said if the Lord wanted the stable of horses, he has it, he wants my business, my corporations, he has it but he said, so long as I can retain the ability again to obtain through my wit I've never forgotten that he's still Jacob he's not yet been touched in the place of his own resourcefulness, his own ability, his own strength, the hip in the human anatomy, especially with a male is a significant place I'm still remembering my trip to the Philippines, and a hot shot young pastor on his way up the ladder of ministerial success, on the platform full of swagger, you know what my message was? Jesus, on the back of an ass upon which never man sat coming down the precipitous mount of olives in a caricature and joke of this man on this little thing who had the option of its mother, and did not employ it, he said you'll find an ass and its cult bring them to me, if anyone stops you say that the Lord has need of them well they found it and they brought them, but instead of using the adult animal practiced in the bearing of the weight of a man he chose that upon which never man sat and coming down have you ever walked down the mount of olives? you cannot walk down and maintain your dignity that's precipitous imagine coming on this little animal, jerking, faulting and people crying Hosanna salvation is of God, they laid their wraps, their cloaks in the way Hosanna, your king shall come to you lowly and meek, your king coming to you is salvation but that's your king, that's his character, that's his name and he's showing it in the absurd, ridiculous way in which he enters his glorious capital city no motorcycle cavalcade man's pride the hip is where we pack our six shooter not so much to employ it but just to have it hang there, we like the heft of it, and we like to stick our thumbs and our belt around there and by the way that's also our sexual prowess, the area of our potency our masculinity and this man was wearing on the Philippines that night a cell phone is that what they called them? I don't know why everybody that communication is so vital that he was expecting a call in the middle of the service but he had it in a holster right on his hip and I could see, this is prophetic seeing, what that meant to him, his self esteem his macho man who was on the way up the ladder of religious success people look up to him with awe and adoration, that thing was a statement that's where God touched Jacob, right there that's where we need to be touched not just for the moment but permanently and enduring affliction permanently crippled which is to say, you can never again base your life and your dependency on your macho ability but on the God who has crippled you He did cripple me He crippled me Praise the Lord, you're a blessed woman Hallelujah This is, talk about paradigm, this is more than just historical description this is everlasting description this is everlasting validity for the issue of Jacob vs Israel through every generation and especially in the last days unless he has touched us at the nexus of where we have our life our success, our ability our confidence, our trust we're not yet his, we're yet Jacob we're willing to make a deal with him and we'll give him a portion back but we're still in the saddle we're still calling the shots in the way that we want to go, and it can even be a religious way, but it's a Jacob way he's got to nail us right there, where we in fact have everything I don't know about physiology, they say that the blood cells are formed in that same socket I mean, the Lord who has made us and knows the human body knows where to touch what a blessing how many would welcome that and he blessed him, so Jacob called that place Peniel from the Hebrew word meaning the face of God for I've seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved well, you may your physical life may have been preserved but your Jacob life has died that touch was more than just a crippling, it was an end you have died when you meet God face to face that Jacob thing has got to perish not just be put temporarily aside, or it will continue to assert itself and make deals and transactions with God I just shared with a brother recently that the Lord may be engineering the circumstances of his life to bring him from a certain mode of Christian life that is common to many, by which you continue to ask God for help and enablement in the way that you will go and that somehow the Lord is not answering I said, well it may be something like Israel when they lived in the wilderness by the manna that came down from heaven, but when they came into the land, that provision for the immaturity ceased they had to live in another mode in another way, from the land itself, and when we come into the land, we have to live in another mode from God himself God answering our prayer and God helping us and God giving us was a provision for our infantile state but it's not intended to be enduring, listen I've been a believer 35 years I've been in critical, crucial places, God has audibly spoken to me on platforms preached the cross, when I obeyed him, there was a devastation people were sprawled out like dead all over that room but the longer that I go on the fewer the occasions to actually hear God instructing me like this morning when did I come up with this Jacob thing it wasn't God saying no, ah, this morning, here's my subject, or even last night, it's more like something that kind of wells up within, I mean it's your thought, it's actually his thought, but you've come to a place after 35 years where your thought is not distinct from his thought his thought is your thought, his way is your way his impulse is your impulse his disposition of spirit is your disposition of spirit, for you have no life unto yourself or for yourself independent of him it's no longer two entities in some kind of Jacob transaction where one receives and gives back something in return Jacob has been done away with and the man is God's he's Israel it's God's very name and God gives it to him I've seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip the story begins chapter's back, the sun sets on Jacob, the story ends with the sun rising on Israel he's received a new name because he's received a new character and he's received it by imputation, by the grace of God when he had passed everything over therefore to this day the Israelites did not eat the thigh muscle as on the hip socket because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh the end of chapter 33 will conclude our review for today verse 18 Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem which is in the land of Canaan on his way from Padan Aram and he camped before the city and from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, he bought for 100 pieces of money the plot of land on which he had pitched his tent there he erected an altar and called it El Elohe Israel he'd never had one before this is his first altar and they could not have been an altar before to seek to establish an altar of worship while you're yet Jacob is a contradiction in terms it'll just become musical it'll just become a kind of personal enjoyment, one that might affect the atmosphere of a meeting but it's not an altar, that's an altar of worship and the name that he gave it describes it El Elohe Israel God, the God of Israel the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac has become the God of Israel and the proof of it is the altar of God raised up in his new name, the God of Israel his own authentic worship now possible out of authentic relationship because something has happened of an ultimate and radical kind that has crippled if not killed the former man who is required to have a new name for a new identity new relationship and now to take a patriarchal role that will bless all generations so we have a choice of this being a nice message or a point of crossing if God gave the impulse for this word, I have to believe that he's addressing Jacobs who have not yet become Israel who have not yet sent over all very generous in their transactions with God but they're still under Jacobs side and you can tell by your worship your capability of worship is it something that just issues out of the spontaneity of your heart or is it kind of a dull thud in which you sit at the periphery you can even bang a tambourine but your spirit is not engaged God is not yet your God that you can worship him, you can enter into the music but not to the worship and if we cannot worship him in spirit and truth, neither can we serve him and that's why Israel is going to go the nation through what it must to become the Israel of God who will worship him and serve him and bless the families of the earth not in its present chutzpah you know this Jewish word not in its present arrogance and self-sufficiency but in its being crippled it will never recover it will always be a diminished broken, bowed over people who have been profoundly humbled by their encounter with God in their final dealing that yet awaits them as it awaited their father the question for us is to what degree is this an appropriate text for us are we the Israel of God or are we yet essentially a Jacob people so just take a moment to reflect on what needs to be passed over what is yet being retained that incapacitates you, disqualifies you is the better word from a final encounter with God who is waiting the moment that he sees you have sent over all that you have that you're no longer negotiating and transacting for the benefit that will come to you if God will help you in the way that you want to go you'll meet him and the truth of that meeting will be a new ability to worship God and a more significant ability to serve God so I want to pray for that for the Jacobs that might be addressed yes I'm still a Jacob you needn't be it beyond today I see now there's a difference we can praise I can praise our Lord there's a difference between praise and worship and I haven't got there I now know I need to be with my altar oh bless the Lord you know what blesses me about you you're just like Jacob in your candid acknowledgement of your condition and need that was his his situation also and God is blessed by that and will meet you hallelujah this word was for you exclusively it was worth everything but you're not the only one I sat here I was outside the circle I can't hear you I was outside the circle of praise I moved in there was something wrong with my heart hallelujah praise God thank you Lord wow you know what my privilege is other men may preach sermons but God employs me for transcendence we've come to an hour where my sermons are no longer the luxury we can afford we need nuts and bolts transaction with God the time is short he's earnest and if this is his word I think I can say with a complete confidence that if you'll forsake every last Jacob dependency and willing to be humbled and crippled why that crippling because it always brings you to the place of continual dependence upon God always you know if I give the impression of look my no hands people will compliment me the way you spoke and the eloquence of the words they don't know they don't know it comes out of such terrible weakness they don't know that I don't know how to put one word before the next they don't know that all I had was the name Jacob and look in the back of the car as we're running here over the text again but no thought of how to bring it that the God of Israel himself wants to be our enablement in our life the very impulse and spirit of our being oh then you worship him for that that's freedom that's no more transaction that's total and utter abandonment that he's waiting for and that's the witness that will save Israel they don't have to see themselves mirrored and reflected in the church that is Jacob like them reeling and dealing so Lord in Jesus name if I have been obedient my God to bring the word of your heart to your people and you have set the stage I was surprised to see Byron here this morning and my brother and others who are here I didn't know that they would be part you knew and this is a word my God for the Jacob sons and daughters that are in this room who have never crossed over Jabbok who are still on the other side still scheming still have their dependencies they're still insulating and hedging their life about it's not a radical trust and a being thrust upon God that yea though he slay me yet will I trust him my God bring these men and women over hear their cry my God they know that they're being addressed that this was not a sermon that this was an appointment for them and they've had it and they've been wonderful in their Jacob life and impressive and many have complimented them for the good things that they have done and the philanthropies and even the assistance to the church and to its work but you have not had them for yourself as worshippers who have their own altar their own authentic relationship with God and so I bless the Lord affect that today make that a transaction today hear the cry of their hearts today they may have come into this room as Jacob but they're leaving it as the Israel of God and it will change everything everything everything so I just invite you right where you sit, don't get eloquent don't get long winded just a short statement to God Lord I forsake all I send all that I'm alone no further dependency you are it change me this day touch me in the socket of where I live the nexus of my authority my power, my ability my intellect, my acquisitions my knowledge, my dependencies even about you that you alone I'll be a stuttering idiot I'll be incapable of nothing unless you are the life of my life the utterance of my utterance the speaking of my speaking the sweetness of my sweetness I'm nothing I want to be Israel a prince with God let him hear that saints and you'll receive it I just want to share just a short word last night when you spoke you just brought a reality to a word that the Lord gave me last night and I don't know if I know this, I don't know where the scripture is but the essence is what a terrible thing has fallen into the hands of the living God and anyway God gave me that word last night when you were speaking and I didn't really understand it I was going to share it and I thought no but the reality that just came to me as you shared that word and what you just shared because I believe the word's for me and maybe for others but the truth of the matter is for me what a terrible thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God because I can't look anywhere but to Him for anything and that's a, I'm only speaking from my own heart, that's a freaky thing that's good brother, you've said enough you know what the remarkable thing is about the faith that a word about Jacob becomes the vicarious experience of the hearer who can enter into exactly the same encounter with the one who wrestled with Jacob through the hearing of the word and the response to it and cross and come into becoming the Israel of God that's the remarkable nature of scripture and the preached word if it's the word of God that is sent it's not just to inform, instruct or inspire but to establish it becomes the event in itself you can enter in through the episode of Jacob into that reality so I invite you to do so by the faith of your own prayer right now and you'll leave this place with a rejoicing it'll be an entirely new walk brought with things that you would have never ever imagined it will eclipse the best you've ever done for God Hallelujah, let Him hear from you Heavenly Father I struggle with this soul I've searched everywhere, I've complained God I want to give myself to you You have to remain a part of me a Jacob part of me Father there was no point for me to have come here and have you touch my heart I pray that all the time I've been scared that you would touch me Thank you Lord I accept that touch Lord Thank you Lord Only you have the power my God to break in and through Thank you Jesus Hallelujah Thank you Lord Thank you Lord Precious gift Thank you my God Another son for your glory Thank you Thank you Father Thank you Lord Hallelujah Thank you Father we thank you Help us to thank you Lord in body, mind and soul Help us Lord God to realize the kingdom of God is a physical presence Help us to come to our altar daily Lord Forgive us Lord Jesus for what we've taken for how we've walked on We don't want to be a Jacob's son Take us by the hand as you did Jacob so we might walk with you Thank you Lord Hallelujah Thanks God Hallelujah Thank you Jesus Father you know what a burning I am Lord Lord you know that all the promises of my life are lies and every time I've said take all your days with all get things in the closet and Lord I see you have to do it Lord I just thank you Lord that you have that power you have that power to touch lives Lord and bring about how keen is I I just hand it to you Lord and say do more because I can't take it Lord Jesus Thank you Lord Yes Thank you my God Lord I surrender every Jacob part of my life to you and I give it all to you Thank you Lord Thank you Lord Father I pray that you would touch me in my hip socket Lord and take the need in my life to be self reliant and to have control over how I am and how I come across and how I say things and how I'm seen Lord I pray that you would break all of that and keep me completely dependent on you Lord teach me what it means to really not know what's going to happen from moment to moment just to be satisfied and content with being in you Lord I'm far from that and I need that in my life Thank you Jesus In Israel no matter what the cost Lord I just pray that you give me the strength Thank you Jesus Lord years ago you had given me a dream and just simply said die to self and I'm still I'm still struggling with all of that and really I just have to thank you that you put me in a situation where everything shuts down everything stops, everything that I'd like to do stops and yet you bless so much Lord and I've been grumbling and complaining for a long long time so my heart is really it's unfeeling I can go through the motions and I pray that you would deal with me according to your great mercy so that I can be a blessing that there can be life that comes forth which is your precious life and that I can fall in love with you again Lord like I did when I first gave my heart to you Thank you Lord I just thank you for this word and I pray that it would have effect in my life and that my name unfortunately does mean Jacob and I pray that that would change from this day to this moment Dear Lord I know Lord that there's no good thing that you want within me or myself Thank you to be Lord for the deposit that you placed in me Lord God I know that I may hurt myself but Father I commune my spirit to you Lord and hold thee in Lord God that you might have your way with me Lord the flesh is weak but the spirit is strong Lord I can't make any promises Lord of the old nature because it's it's destitute so God in my spirit Father I commune myself to you Father to give you permission dear Lord to do whatever you have to do Lord because God it's all up to you God it's not my efforts it's your spirit Father it's your goodness it's your compassion have mercy Father have mercy dear Lord let us not bow to man let us not bow to creatures let us not bow to human flesh Lord let God just turn to you Father in every situation Lord God fill us with your spirit Father God may we be so disciplined Lord to cry out and call upon you Father that your spirit may fill us with your grace and strength and let us be courageous Lord may the spirit of humility Lord be ours Lord may we look at others as better than ourselves Lord may we not be guilty of exalting ourselves above the poor wretches because we're all poor wretches Lord thank you Jesus bless my brother bless my brother thank you Lord thank you my God dear Heavenly Father thank you for teaching me thank you for showing me your way Lord thank you for showing me that I'm a Jacob Lord please forgive me but Lord just continue to teach me and show me the way you'll have me go Lord I just ask right now as I take off my side armor that you Lord give along to teach me and show me your holy way here on you I pray this in Jesus' holy name Amen Amen Amen I praise you Lord God Almighty that as you revealed to me in your precious love that of myself without Jesus I can do nothing absolutely nothing not even take the next breath that you humble us totally to be totally dependent on you Lord God cannot even think the next thought without your enabling as our precious Lord Jesus step fully into the Father and of himself did nothing only through God was he enabled and so Lord Jesus you gave us the great promise that we can do all things through Christ in strength and justice and you raise us up to the heavenlies and you seat us in heavenly places daily Lord you give me those two promises those two words straight from scripture and it balances me up Lord God that I can do nothing of myself but I can do all things through Christ in strength and justice thank you heavenly Father for balancing me in the walk the straight and narrow path and oh Lord let me never feel that I am tamed lest I fall in Jesus holy name Lord I know the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked whatever this world you need to remove to do please do I'm trusting you and I want to trust you fully with all my heart do whatever it takes Lord so there's nothing left just you Jesus Lord Lord Lord whatever could be said about Jacob he would not let the moment pass when he had his opportunity and I pray that that would be true for you I will not let you go except you bless me I'm not going to leave this room I'm not going to allow the service to be concluded without transacting with you I want your blessing I need your blessing I want my latter years to be more glorious than the former and I cannot do that as a Jacob don't let him go saints he's here he'll answer every cry humble yourself in my hand I ask you to search my heart Lord I'm aware of all of my wicked ways but I ask you to search those things that I'm not aware of and see if there is any wicked way Lord that all of this could be revealed Lord all that you've given me Lord the strength I cannot in my flesh do that but in my spirit Lord to lay these down and let you crucify every one of these areas you would put your finger on Lord every corner every crack and crevice Lord just empty everything Lord I would ask you to come into my life and to take out of it every Jacob character out of my life not every conniving manipulative thing every everything that I want to hold on to from my father you would take it out you would wrestle me down I do become a minister Father I don't want anything to separate us Lord I just pray that you show me there won't be any distance between us Lord to walk with you Thank you Lord Oh Lord I too ask that you just search me Father God Father God just I don't want anything that is not of you Lord God if there is any Jacob in me Father just slow it slow it that I might be his Father I cry out to you in desperation this day Lord I find that such a depression has settled upon me over my back and I can't seem to get through Lord I can't cry and I can't laugh I'm all bottled up inside I feel all boarded up and I need release in my spirit this day Lord I call over you in the name of Jesus Thank you Lord Thank you It mustn't be perceived that if our Jacob life was dignified that it's nonetheless Jacob So I'm especially grateful that Jack has prayed because if you'll allow me Jack I can almost say Jake it's been a dignified Jacob life and an honorific one and I'm sure that you've been applauded and complimented but it's still on that other side and that the Lord is wanting that qualitative coming over and coming through as a son of Israel to change everything I was waiting for you to pray and now we can have a real communion saints God is in the process of restoring the great sacraments I spoke yesterday about water baptism that has become in modern times a mere getting wet the most profound transaction that God makes available for man is to enter into his death and to be raised to newness of life and the sacrament of the Lord's table called communion has become for many a little plastic glass with a white wafer waiting for the signal to take it together with others with whom they have no relationship it's almost a lock and it mediates nothing it brings nothing God gave this as a life giving provision because we who are sons and daughters of Israel know that we cannot go on without him, we need to be renewed and enabled, we need the spirit of his life the substance of his life the character of his life I'll just show you a little private secret I take communion daily by myself in my early morning devotional time I've got a little wine and I've got a piece of matzah I keep breaking a little piece of it I take a mini communion every morning you know why? I'm making a statement to God I can't make it through this day yes, I've got 130 something IQ I think so, I had I've got this, but I cannot I need your life and not only your life and its energy and its power I need the character of your life for me to affect a humility humility is a grotesque joke humility is God it's what you are in yourself you're the king who's meek and lowly and as I eat of this flat bread that is unleavened look how uncomely there's nothing inflated or pompous about it I ask that the character of your humility and meekness be transfused and come unto me with the very eating the spirit of your life the substance of your life the character of your life because a man is what he eats so Lord we break this bread holy great sacrament in your great wisdom that foresaw the millennia ahead and the desperate necessity of your saints, especially of the last days, to have the strength of God, the power, the enablement the mind of the Lord, the wisdom the insight, the meekness the disposition of the spirit the sweetness the firmness, whatever the moment requires in God it's got to be by God or cannot be unto God it'll be a self-glorying rather than the glorification of the Holy One of Israel himself, and Lord you heard these transactions and these prayers they're real and let this be a first communion in the new life as the sons and daughters of Israel who are now sealing with the covenant of the cup and the taking of the bread they're the affirmation of their word and prayer and you're going to give them now the enablement my God, that is given exclusively to the sons and daughters of Israel to live by you that our worship will not be the issue of our loudspeakers or our musicality but very God himself, sweet singer of Israel himself having voiced through the life totally yielded Lord let there be a qualitative difference in everything because what is our house fellowship in the last analysis different than other than the church down the block whose architecture may be a little bit different but so what, whether we're sitting on couches or pews, unless the character and the truth of what has changed is real, it's just a reiteration of the same thing in another format the fact that it's a house a house doesn't change anything it can become just as religious you've called us to something more so bless this bread bless each one who breaks and partakes give them the substance of your life your character you are the true Israel of God and we can only be it my God by virtue of that union and the enablement that is yourself bless the cup my God the cup of covenant we thank you my God for the covenant of the exchanged life that you who knew no sin became sin that we who knew no righteousness can become the righteousness of God in you so seal the transaction of today and let the spirit of your life, which is the spirit of giving, of outpouring of self-sacrifice be taken right up and into our own spirit and life bless the cup, bless the bread thank you Lord those who want a separate glass there's a number of them on the table I wouldn't have provided that one cup one cup thank you Lord if for some reason your spouse is not here eat and drink for her as the one like me thank you Lord want to pray something sing something feel free it's a holy sacrament all of that stupid catholic protestant controversy that has reduced the sacrament to an emblem and robbed it of its reality as the substance and spirit of the life of God that needs to be done with hallelujah so we bless you Lord thank you Lord thank you Lord feel the surge of the Lord's life with that eating and drinking taking in something more than natural elements something more than a symbol himself thank you Lord precious God on high a communion of the saints with you and with each other Lord let that be the foundation of their fellowship not the issue of structure leadership, doctrine but union communion with God and with men the sons and daughters of God thank you Lord hallelujah and I'm joined with them in this we're one together, hallelujah thank you Lord on the basis of this meat and drink we can make it to the mount hallelujah mount Zion the city of God the kingdom of God on the strength of this meat and this drink because it's taken in truth thank you Lord hallelujah thank you Lord we're willing to bear your limp and we count it not a shame but an honor and a privilege my God while others may boast in their human accomplishment and attainment we're willing to be looked upon and even scorned for limping and accept your life give the strength the courage, the word, we're silent we're quiet, we're meek, we're unobserved and content to remain so thank you Lord oh praise your great name