Yet notice also how Jacob reminds God of his promise, Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good. That is the very pith and marrow of prayer when we can quote the Lords promise, and say to him, Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. You have a strong plea to urge with God when you can say to him, Thou saidst, for he is a God who cannot lie. A prayer most humble, most direct in its petitions, and also full of faith. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. THE chapter from which the text is taken bristles with points. So it is clear that the greatest strength and dignity and power will not serve a man, so as to make him excel, if he be unstable. Had there been one more, there would have been no hand to lay hold of the fifth person; but these two angels, with their four hands, could just lead these four persons outside the doomed city. What we do ourselves, we do not always expect others to do. My chief business is to honour the God whom I am, and whom I serve; and if the taking of this spoil would dishonour him, I will not take even so much as a thread or a shoe-latchet.. If you want the Lord to confide in you, and to trust you with his secrets, you must see that he is able to say of you what he said of Abraham, he will command his children and his household after him.. They will make up our first day and our last day, till we get where there are no days but the Ancient of Days. 4. 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 eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Gen 18:31-32. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. When he finds them willing to make the sacrifice that he demands, he often does not require it at their hands. How much of evil begins with questioning! And the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. Gen 32:26. Gen 19:13-14. He mentions the adversaries to show how great would be the victories of the race that should come and dispossess them. Gen 8:12. During World War II two pilots saw and photographed something they believed was the ark on Mount Ararat. Gen 49:14-15. Lesson 14: Sin's Full Course (Genesis 6:1-8) | Bible.org And he rose up that night, and took his two womenservants, and his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. I blame him not for this, yet, methinks, he is to be blamed that he did not pray first. The Holy Spirit says, Judas, not Iscariot, so that there should be no mistake about the person intended. So it is not strange that this is mentioned as an heroic act of faith. (Poole), 2018 David Guzik No distribution beyond personal use without permission. Notice that the angel says, Now I know that thou fearest God. I do not think that the gracious use of godly fear has ever been sufficiently estimated by the most of us; here, the stress is not laid upon the faith, but upon the filial fear of Abraham. Thus the beginning and the end of the Bible call our attention to the tree of life and the river of life in the paradise below and the better paradise above. It was well for Jacob to be reminded of that fact, for he was about to pass into another trouble. We shall read three short portions of Scripture, all illustrative of the great truth that God has sometimes given grace to his people to overcome himself, the Almighty has condescended to be vanquished by man. So, when my eye of faith is dim, and I cannot see the covenant sign, I will remember that there is an eye which never can be dim, which always sees the covenant token; and so I shall still be secure notwithstanding the dimness of my spiritual vision. Having attended to the air, God further exercised his power by setting the earth in order. 2 Corinthians And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. The fault lies in trying to compress all truth under either of those two heads. That must mean mischief to me, and my company. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. God is not unfeeling in the face of human sin and rebellion. b. We may recount and rehearse the story of our rescue from universal destruction, and we need not be afraid or ashamed of repeating it. Often, the very symbols on his table have been refreshing to us, but their inner meaning has been far more sustaining and comforting to our spirit. Well, you see, he had gone in by the door, and he meant to come out by the door, and he that opened the door for him, and shut him in, must now open the door for him, and let him out. This is very respectful language, and rather obsequious, too; but when a man knows that he has done wrong to another, he ought to be prepared to humble himself to the injured individual; and, though it happened long ago, yet Jacob really had injured his brother Esau, and it was but right that, in meeting him again, he should put himself into a humble position before him. Colossians And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground. Click to Sign Up Now! Lots petition is only like an ounce of prayer. Genesis 6:4. It is a good thing to have the right names for things. He was in no hurry to close that blessed interview; when he had once come into the Lords immediate presence, he lingered there. 1 Corinthians Oh, that question! The greater our troubles, the louder our song at the last. This was a sure sign that Joseph knew his brethren, and they might well recognize him even by that precept, for their consciences must have told them that it had been their common habit to fall out either with or without occasion, so he bids them not to do so. And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt-. Gen 3:19. Gen 18:26-30. Gen 32:25. The Lord will have it from his own lips that he has offended; he summons no other witness. For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed. It is a very sweet thing to die with a blessing on your lips, and it is equally good to live in the same spirit. Gen 32:9-10. And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. So he tied his own hands: he could not revoke his blessing, or, had he done so, he would have brought the curse upon himself. And he (Jacob) said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.. What can Jacob do now that the main bone of his leg is put out of joint? It may seem a small thing; but it meant a great deal. These waters above were divided from the waters below. And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men. A man who is very familiar with God will, by-and-by, venture to say that which, at the first, he would not have dared to utter. For the sake of Lot, Abraham had to go and fight the enemies of the king of Sodom, and sometimes, in fighting for religious liberty, we have had to be associated with persons from whom we differ as much as Abraham differed from the king of Sodom but right must be fought for under all circumstances. You know how sorely Joseph was persecuted by his brethren, yet how the Lord was with him in all his troubles. He who provided the ram for a burnt offering in the place of Isaac will provide everything else that is required; and you may depend upon it that he who, in the greatest emergency that could ever happen, provided his only-begotten and well-beloved Son to die us the Substitute for sinners, will have foreseen every other emergency that can occur, and will have fore-provided all that is needful to meet it. And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hand were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:). It contains the "seed" for all the dealings of God with this world, the principles of the relationships of God with man, and in type anticipates all future revelations of God. Oh, how often have we been lifted up above the earth by the very force that threatened to drench and drown us! An error is often half killed when you know the real name of it; its power lies in its being indescribable; but as soon as you can call it darkness, you know how to act towards it. It was true then, and it is true today: But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (Romans 5:20). Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. After all, an ark is a chest, not a ship; this refers to the shoebox shape of the vessel. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are those with thee? the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD: and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. That tree of life in the midst of the earthly paradise was to be symbolic of another tree of life in the paradise above, from which the children of God shall never be driven as Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden. And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them.. Oh, that at any time when we have sinned, God would ask each one of us the question, What is it that thou hast done?, Still, you see, there is no confession of guilt, but only the attempt to push the blame off upon somebody else. It does not say that he wrestled with the man, but there wrestled a man with him. We call him wrestling Jacob, and so he was; but we must not forget the wrestling man,or, rather, the wrestling Christ,the wrestling Angel of the covenant, who had come to wrestle out of him much of his own strength and wisdom, which, though it was commendable in a measure, and we have commended it, was an evil because it kept him from relying on the strength and wisdom of God. ii. Six Turkish soldiers claimed to see the ark in 1916. vii. Some mens work will not bear looking at, and tomorrow becomes all the worse to them because today was not considered and its sin repented of by them. Gen 49:16-17. Four hundred men with him! There is not an angel in heaven but God will make him to be a servant to you if you need him; there is not a wind in any quarter of the globe but God will guide it to you if it is necessary; and there are no waves of the sea but shall obey the Lords will concerning you. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. The sons of God marry the daughters of menMen turn to wickedness, the earth is filled with violence, and all flesh is corruptedThe Flood is promisedGod establishes His covenant with Noah, who builds an ark to save his family and various living things. 2 Peter He placed them in the order of his affection for them, the best-beloved in the rear. He was nearly five hundred years old when he began to preach about the flood, a good old age to take up such a subject. Sometimes, a child of God will find himself cast, through force of circumstances, into very curious companionship. Gen 22:9. Pleading men grow bolder and braver in their requests. I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD. It is by passing through death that we come out into the realm of perfectness. Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. It is God who sends the winds; they seem most volatile and irregular, but God sends them to do his bidding. God evidently meant the two persons, male and female, to complete the man, and the entireness of the manhood lies in them both. All the details are mentioned, for true obedience is very careful of detail. Gen 3:22. Changes will take effect once you reload the page. and my soul shall live. Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him: and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. Gen 1:5. b. Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth: Noah's three sons will figure into the account in a significant way. I have a right to this, says he, but I will not take it; what are mere earthly rights to me? How often do you and I have our great Substitute very near to us, yet we do not see him because we do not lift up our eyes and look. Some touch of human weakness must always accompany the divine strength that God may give to us. My spirit shall not always strive It is only by the influence of the Spirit of God that the carnal mind can be subdued and destroyed; but those who wilfully resist and grieve that Spirit must be ultimately left to the hardness and blindness of their own hearts, if they do not repent and turn to God. Gen 2:9. Unstable as water, thou shall not excel; because thou wentest up to thy fathers bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch. Exodus He had already attained a fine old age, but he had another century of life before him, which he could not then foresee, or expect. The fig leaves were to hide their nakedness, and now the trees themselves were to hide them from God. Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Oh, if we would but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all things should be added unto us! But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. ] According to an old tradition, not only Genesis (also called the first book of Moses), but the whole Pentateuch (from Greek pente - five and teuchos - container for scrolls) were written by Moses. He spoke like a prophet of God when he was really speaking to his son in the anguish of his spirit, and in his prophetic utterance we find the sum end substance of the gospel: My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. He is the great Provider, and he provides the offering, not only for us, but for himself, for the sacrifice was necessary to God as well as to man. Gen 49:19. Turn first to the twelfth chapter. Surely, he is coming thus to avenge himself for the wrong I did him, long ago. And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest? Out of the small stock he had, Noah took of the clean beasts, and of the clean fowls, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.