Outline: God’s Peace, Presence, Promise, Provision, and Protection.
God’s Peace (v1-3)
Verse 1: When Jacob, on his journey to Egypt arrives at Beersheba, he makes a sacrifice to God, and God visits him there. It is interesting that Beersheba is where both Abraham and Isaac lived for a time during their sojourning. And now Jacob is visited by the God of his fathers there. This may be to remind Jacob of the Lord’s faithfulness to his fathers, and to remind Jacob of the faith of his fathers. It is often in times of insecurity and fears that God brings us back to times of his faithfulness, and reminds us of who He is and His steadfast love and care for his people, and His faithfulness to His promises.
Verse 2: Notice, simply, that God speaks to Israel. What comfort and peace this must have brought to Israel, to hear his God speak to him again, after many years of silence. After many years of sorrow and sadness, believing his beloved son Joseph to be dead, his beloved wife Rachel truly dead, despairing of life, all kinds of terrible family issues, and now his God comes to him and speaks comfort and peace in his ears once more.
For God’s people, just to hear the voice of their God is a means of such great comfort and peace, just to know he still speaks to you can flood the believer’s soul with a peace that passes all understanding.
As great a comfort as this was for Israel, how much more comfort are we able to take in the words of God spoken to us? God no longer speaks audibly in visions of the night to his people; He speaks to us in His Word, where he reveals Himself to His people, where He speaks Christ to us, and where He speaks to us such sweet gospel promises in Jesus. We don’t have to sit around for years and years in sorrow and sadness and in the dark like Israel. We don’t have to sit around wishing, waiting, and hoping that God might speak to us. He has given us a book to have 24/7 wherein He speaks to us. Oh what soothing and strengthening peace there is in the words of God to His people!
Do we love and cherish our Bibles wherein God speaks to us? Or do we neglect them?
Verse 2: “Jacob, Jacob.” What a comforting and endearing entreaty from God. “Here I am.” This is the proper humble response. Jacob shows maturity in old age after many rough years of walking with God. Do we humbly and wisely come to God’s Word, simply saying, “here I am” – being ready to receive from God’s word, whatever is there?
Verse 3: “Do not be afraid.” Jacob had many reasons to be fearful of going to Egypt: 1) The Hebrews were an abomination to the Egyptians, 2) It was a strange and pagan land with a pagan people, 3) His father Isaac was told by God not to go to Egypt on a certain occasion during a famine, 4) He is old, 5) Canaan is the land of promise. Yet he is told, “do not be afraid.”
Horatio Spafford wrote the beloved hymn, “It Is Well.” Before he wrote the hymn, Spafford’s young son died in the great Chicago fire. He then planned to move back to Europe. Because of some complications he sent his wife and four daughters ahead of him while he stayed back to take care of business, only to hear the news that there was a shipwreck and all four of his daughters died. Yet it was after this, as he was sailing across the Atlantic to meet his grieving wife that he penned the words to “It Is Well.”
When peace like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know, it is well, it is well, with my soul.
But do you know what my favorite verse to that song is? In the original it is the 3rd verse. It says,
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
It’s crazy if you think about it, the very thing that gave him peace to say, “it is well,” after all his young children were killed, was the fact that his sins were forgiven! It was the promises of the gospel that brought a peace that passeth all understanding to flood his soul! My friends, we have that same gospel, and those same gospel promises!
Oh what peace the Lord affords to his children – to know that whatever sorrow and suffering and pain we experience in this life will only be temporary. We won’t go to hell when we die! We have Christ, and we’ll be brought to Him fully in the flesh when we die, and we have him forever. Oh what peace the gospel affords to us.
God’s Presence (v4)
God promises Jacob that He will be with him and He will bring him back up again. This not to be understood to be referring specifically to Jacob, but to Israel as a whole. God’s presence with Jacob is itself a great source of peace for Jacob.
What a great assurance that is for us – we are not simply promised Christ when we die, but we have him now. He is with us now. That were Jesus’ last words before He ascended into heaven after His resurrection – he gave the great commission, then He said, “and lo, I will be with you, to the end of the age.” It is who He is, a present God, Immanuel, God with us.
God’s Promise (v3-4)
God confirms the promises he made to Abraham and Isaac here again to Jacob. No Egyptian can take away the promises of God to His people. These promises are a great source of comfort to Israel. There is likewise, great comfort and peace for us in being reminded of God’s promises.
God’s Provision (v28-34)
Verse 28: Judah goes ahead.
Verse 29-30: What a reunion. Though suffering may be long, God will at last comfort His people.
God’s Protection (v31-34)
The social stigma regarding the Hebrews and shepherds, played a crucial role in protecting Israel from intermingling and losing their identity while in Egypt. God used the Egyptians disgust and disdain for the Hebrews to keep Israel set apart unto Himself. It is not without purpose that the Egyptians considered the Hebrews an abomination.
So often this is how the Lord works to preserve, protect, and purify his people, the Church. As John Calvin puts it, “So the Lord often permits us to be despised or rejected by the world, so that being liberated and cleansed from its pollution, we may cultivate holiness.”
It can be easy to look at the landscape of evangelicalism today and see all the worldly pollution within the professing Christian churches and despair, or worry about the future of the Church. But God will protect and preserve his people. He will sanctify them and purify them. Ephesians 5v25-27 tells us,
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
I love the fourth verse of the great hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation,”
The church shall never perish! Her dear Lord to defend, to guide, sustain, and cherish, is with her to the end; Tho’ there be those that hate her, and false sons in her pale, Against or foe or traitor she ever shall prevail.
Let us remember that God’s people are not at home in this world. We are outcasts, weird, abominations to the world. And that’s okay.
The Gospel Call
Like the Hebrews, we are foreigners to the land of blessing and riches, apart from Christ. We are an abomination to the heavenly beings. Yet, Christ calls us to come to Him, for he has a place prepared for us. We who were once foreigners are now made family members through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. We who were once an abomination because of our great sin, wickedness, and dirtiness, are now set apart as holy, being cleansed, sanctified, and purified by Christ.
We will either be an abomination to the heavenly beings around the throne of Christ, or an abomination to the world. It is far better to be an abomination to the world, than to be an abomination to the cherubim and seraphim. Come to Christ! Come to the one who became an abomination for us, taking on our wretched and vile rags of sin, so that we can be made pure and holy. Come to the one who was cast out so that we could be brought in! Come to Christ who took your punishment, so we can receive his reward!
Concluding Gospel Thoughts
For those of us who have come to Christ and are found in Him, imagine the day, like Jacob, when our travelling is through, weary and worn as we may be, we limp up to the gates of heaven, some of us just barely crawling along, and there we are met by Christ Himself, who embraces us as we begin to weep around His neck and fall into His arms, finally united with Him in the flesh, after years of suffering, and longing to be with Him.
As Joseph longed for Jacob to be where he was and enjoy the place he had prepared for him, so Christ longs for us to be with Him, and enjoy the place He has prepared for us. And He will ensure that we make it. As Joseph sent the wagons to ensure his father made it to him, so Christ provides the power, the means, and the security that we will make it to Him.
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