00:35 And being God’s anointed, Amen. Jacob didn’t do anything. It was God that blessed, Amen.
00:40 We see that here in Genesis 31: 9 and what we learn from that is God will bless us in the sight of our enemies. Psalm 23:5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.
00:58 I love that verse because it’s not just God blessing. He’s blessing you in front of those that hate you, Amen. And your cup runneth over.
01:07 You’re so blessed and people can’t stand you and God keeps blessing you in some unbelievable way. It’s just God’s way of being like, I love you. Okay, you’re not popular over there but you believe on me and you’re obedient.
01:18 You serve me. I’m gonna bless you. And God will do this in a matter of ways.
01:24 Look what God was doing with Jacob. God wasn’t just saying, oh I created a cow, here it is Jacob. Or I created this, here it is.
01:31 God was saying, no. These are what Laban was trying to trick you with and now I’m gonna give them all to you. And this is this principle that’s very very common in the Bible and very true.
01:43 And I love this principle. It’s the principle of recompense or repayment. And Proverbs 13:21-22 sums it up pretty good.
01:54 Evil pursueth sinners but to the righteous good shall be repaid. Evil pursueth sinners but to the righteous good shall be repaid. A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.
02:07 Well Abraham was a good man and here we have the child of Abraham’s child, amen. Jacob who is very blessed, Amen. And we see that on and on throughout all the scriptures.
02:20 And we see the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. So Laban was sinning. We know he was an idolater.
02:26 You know he we know he had gods that he was very upset when they were stolen by one of his daughters, amen. And we know that he was tricky and slippery and we know that he was tricking Jacob over and over again. And that wealth that he would have gotten through cattle that I’m guessing were his to start or were intermingled with Jacob’s cattle, he was not getting.
02:44 It was all being given to Jacob. So the recompense, one living godly is blessed, one not living godly is not blessed. And we see this idea that God will take from the wicked and give to the just.
02:56 And you may say, well I don’t see that. I see a lot of wicked people living very lavishly. Well you are looking in the now, in the here and now, and not looking beyond here and now.
03:06 Because I’m telling you God is a just God, amen. I’ll never forget the scripture in the Bible where there was a very wicked man that blasphemed God in a letter. I believe that letter was to King Hezekiah.
03:18 And I think it was 16 years after he blasphemed God and King Hezekiah had taken that letter and presented it to God, said God look at what this person said of you. I think it was around 16 years later he was in his pagan temple worshiping his idol and his own children came in and murdered him, 16 years later. And what a humiliation that your own kids would murder you, Amen.
03:37 Kind of the opposite of your kids that are receiving inheritance and loving you, right? They’re murdering their own father. And we see this, that God’s judgment is His timing. And His timing is perfect.
03:51 And so he may enact judgment immediately. And we’ve seen that before. I’ve preached about that before.
03:56 Or he may choose a time of his pleasure. But he will get judgment, Amen. And he’ll recompense.
04:01 He’ll repay good for good and bad for bad. When we live for God, then we are in line for a blessing. Even when we, when it may not seem that way.
04:10 You know, when we live for God, you may say I don’t see a blessing. But he’s doing things supernaturally that you can’t even understand. You may have a delayed travel.
04:20 There was someone that wrote something on Facebook, on a ministry group that said something to the extent of so-and-so was supposed to go to Brazil on a mission trip and got sick. And I won’t get into the details of how they got sick. But everybody, from what I could see in the comments, was saying that’s God’s way of saying wait, don’t go.
04:37 And I’m sure there was other missions chiming in there saying, you know, mind the Lord, understand what he’s doing. So someone may say from the outside looking in, oh, your trip was canceled. That’s bad for you.
04:48 And we’re saying no, that’s God’s grace for us, Amen. It’s His love for us. I’ve heard preachers and teachers say that they weren’t necessarily blessed financially, but that their car didn’t break down for 20 years.
05:01 Or that they hardly ever go to the hospital. One that I thought of that’s a great blessing that many people just may take for granted, closeness with kids. You know, if you have a closeness with your kids or your grandkids, how blessed are you, Amen That’s priceless.
05:15 That is priceless. In this day and age, it’s very difficult to have that closeness with children, with all these distractions and with all this all just all this craziness going on. And so if you have that closeness with your children, because you brought them up in the ways of the Lord, and you minded the Lord, and you serve the Lord, and He’s worked that right heart in your child, and He’s blessed you.
05:36 And, and you know what, that is a priceless blessing. And maybe one day, if you don’t have a closeness with a child, that child will come back, like the prodigal comes back, and you will again. And these are types of blessings that I believe God bestows upon those that are living obedient for Him.
05:53 And we take for granted all the blessings that we have that are poured out from God after we exhibit this godly obedience. And we don’t have a relationship with God where we expect Him to keep blessing us every time we do anything. It’s quite the opposite.
06:08 We just serve Him naturally because we love Him. And oh, how He loves to bless us. And I can brag on God all day and night long on how he’s blessed my family personally, as we’ve chosen to serve him and do our very best to put Him first above what we would see as our own silly wants or desires.
06:25 We say no God’s first here, we’re gonna make some sacrifices. And oh, how God is richly, richly blessed us. Anyone that knows us knows the Lord has really been so good to us.
06:35 Despite our, our afflictions and our problems. He has just been incredible. And even in them, He has shown himself faithful every time.
06:45 So let’s move on from Genesis 31. Nine, we’re going to move on to Genesis31:10 here.
06:50 And it came to pass at that at the time that the cattle conceived, that I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream and behold, the rams which leaned upon the cattle were ringstock speckled and grizzled and the angel of God spake unto me in a dream saying Jacob. And I said, here am I. And he said, lift up now thine eyes and see all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstock speckledand grizzled for I’ve seen all that Laban hath done unto thee. All right.
07:17 So now we see here something very fascinating here in verse 12. God sees all that’s happening. We often will go through an affliction, a battle, a problem and think for some reason God doesn’t see it, but He does see it.
07:32And if we’re praying to him and communicating to him, Lord help us. And He, for whatever reason, it sees fit to let this affliction continue. There is a reason for it.
07:42 There’s a Godly reason for it. God saw Jacob’s, um, Jacob getting scammed for lack of a better word or getting, getting manipulated. God saw it and he wanted Jacob to know that He saw it.
07:53 Okay. And He wanted Jacob to know that he has been blessing him and he wanted Jacob to know that He will continue to bless him. God sees all that is happening.
08:00 We must keep this top of mind here. God tells Jacob he’s seen it and it’s time for it to end at that time. God’s saying enough.
08:08 We understand if God sees what’s happening, that he will be with those living for him to help them overcome that current challenge. You know, we think about this, uh, like let me think about this from afar saying, okay, yeah, God sees everything. He’s omnipresent, but do we think of it near? Like he really sees everything.
08:24 Um, I heard a preacher say recently on the radio, imagine God sitting next to you on the couch with what you were watching. Uh, would you watch certain things? Would you not watch certain things? Um, I think that’s a very good way to think of it. I thought I’ve heard another one, uh, said, I think this may even be scripture, bring every thought in subjection unto Christ.
08:47 The idea, every thought in subjection under Christ. So, so if we know that God sees everything, why not bring every thought that we have to Him and say, is this okay to be thinking about this Lord? Is this not, you know, and He may not won’t audibly speak, I don’t think, but He’ll lead you through peace in your heart through the Holy spirit conviction. If you’re saved to the right place.
09:08 And so this all comes down to this idea. Think about this. If God sees everything and people act sinful, what’s going on.
09:16 It comes down to belief. If unbelievers actually thought God saw them, they’d act much different. Think of how you act when nobody is looking.
09:28 That is the fatal flaw of the center. It’s unbelief. When you see someone living in grave sin, yes, they’re rebelling, but truly beyond rebellion or that what’s fueling that rebellion is an unbelief in God.
09:41 They have no fear of God because they don’t truly believe He is who He has said He is. Amen. If they’ve read his word, they didn’t believe what they read in his word because you start getting into this very book here in Genesis, especially in Exodus, you start reading about God’s wrath and all of a sudden you kind of clean up your act real quick.
09:55 When you realize that God is not playing around, that He’s a fearful God, that He’s a just God, that He’s a God of all power and might. Amen. And on the flip end of it, if you believe that He’s a rewarder of them that diligently seek him, if you believe that there’s treasure and gold in the book, Amen, then you’ll have that belief to seek him out.
10:11 And then all of a sudden your problems will be opportunities. You’ll say, okay, here I have a problem. Here’s an opportunity for God to glorify Himself through me.
10:18 I have an issue. God’s going to get the glory here. What’s he going to do? He’s going to step up and do something.
10:31 Amen. And then we start not fearing so much our lives and not having as much anxiety about our lives because we’re giving it all to him, understanding that he sees all and that we believe that he sees all. But so many, they don’t really believe it.
10:37 Even those that many people, they call themselves Christian, they call themselves believers, but they’re, they’re, they’re believing in their mind maybe, but not in their hearts, right? They’re, they’re believing that like, okay, you know, God, He must’ve made everything. It’s so complex and all works together, gravity and so forth and all these things happening at one time. But yeah, I don’t know.
10:58 He’s really watching me right now. Oh yeah, he is. He is.
11:01 Amen. God is everywhere. I’ve, I’ve read this before or this before that God is in hell.
11:07 Well, yes, he is. He’s everywhere. He made everything.
11:14 Amen. Now I don’t think God is in hell the same way He’s in heaven in the sense that in heaven we are seeing Him through the person of Jesus Christ. We’re worshiping Him.
11:18 We’re praising Him. We’re serving and working for Him. We’re fellowshipping with Him.
11:26 It’s a beautiful time in heaven and hell. It is, it is awful and there is a real actual hell. But to say that God’s not in hell, it’d be difficult because God is everywhere.
11:33 The Bible says everything was made by him and, and without him, nothing was made. So I believe he is all places. Amen.
11:38 He sees it all. Uh, and then we’re going to wrap this, this, uh, message up here with a look at something very powerful. We’re just going to go a couple of verses down in Genesis 31.
11:48 Uh, and we’ll start at verse 13. Um, I am the God of Bethel where thou anointest the pillar and where thou vowedst a vow unto me. Now arise, get thee out from this land and return unto the land of thy kindred.
12:03 Here in verse 13, God’s reminding Jacob of the vow he made when he made an altar to the Lord. Uh, verse 14, and Rachel and Leah answered him and said unto him, is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house? Uh, and it goes on to them saying, basically, let’s, let’s get up and go. And here in verse 13, God is bringing up a very important thing that happened here.
12:26 The idea of building an altar, a memorial to God. And, um, what we see here is that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all built alt altars to God. And I’m gonna start with Abraham Genesis way back in Genesis 13 :14- 18.
12:43 And the Lord said unto Abraham, after that Lot was separated from him, lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward and southward and eastward and westward. Now, Genesis 13, that’s verse 14, uh, is dealing with Abra Abraham or Abraham at the time. And Lot had come into Canaan land.
13:03 They, they were very wealthy from leaving Egypt. They, their, their herders, their shepherds and stuff couldn’t get along. And so Abraham basically says, look, you know, we don’t need to fight about this.
13:13 You go ahead and pick where you want to go. I’ll go the opposite way. And so Lot, he sets his eyes towards Sodom, which I understand as being eastward.
13:19 And what’s funny about this is they get, Lot goes out that way. Abraham goes the other way. And then God just reminds him very gently right after that and said, uh, Abraham, after, you know, after Lot’s leaving, okay, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are right now.
13:32 I want you to look north. I want you to look south. I want you to look east.
13:37 That’s where a lot went. I want you to look east. I want you to look west.
13:41 Verse 15 for all the land, which thou seest to thee, will I give it and to thy seed forever. So God is blessing Abraham and saying, you’re going to get it all. Even with that little skirmish over there, it’s all yours.
13:56 Friend, I urge you to make an altar to God in your heart. Celebrate God today. Give him praise and glory.
14:01 Join us next time for the third part of this three-part series in Genesis 31. Thank you so much for listening. Take care.
14:06 God bless and Amen.