5. Then one more thought about who are the “sons of Jacob,” for I should like
you to find out whether you are “sons of Jacob,” yourselves. They are men of
peculiar character; for though there were some things about Jacob’s character
which we cannot commend, there are one or two things which God commends.
There was Jacob’s faith, by, which Jacob had his name written amongst the
mighty worthies who obtained not the promises on earth, but shall obtain them
in heaven. Are you men of faith, beloved? Do you know what it is to walk by
faith, to live by faith, to get your temporary food by faith, to live on
spiritual manna-all by faith? Is faith the rule of your life? if so, you are
the “sons of Jacob.”
Then Jacob was a man of prayer-a man who wrestled, and groaned, and prayed.
There is a man up yonder who never prayed this morning & before coming up to
the house of God. Ah! you poor heathen, don’t you pray? No! he says, “I never
thought of such a thing; for years I have not prayed.” Well, I hope you may
before you die. Live and die without prayer, and you will pray long enough
when you get to hell. There is a woman: she did not pray this morning; she
was so busy sending her children to the Sunday School, she had no time to
pray. No time to pray? Had you time to dress? There is a time for every
purpose under heaven, and if you had purposed to pray, you would have prayed.
Sons of God cannot live without prayer. They are wrestling Jacobs. They are
men in whom the Holy Ghost so works, they they can no more five without
prayer than I can live without breathing. They must pray. Sirs, mark you, if
you are living without prayer, you are living without Christ; and dying like
that, your portion will be in the lake which burneth with fire. God redeem
you, God rescue you from such a lot! But you who are “the sons of Jacob,”
take comfort, for God is immutable.
III. Thirdly, I can say only a word about the other point-THE BENEFIT WHICH
THESE “SONS OF JACOB” RECEIVE FROM AN UNCHANGING GOD. “Therefore ye sons
Jacob are not consumed.” “Consumed?” How? how can man be consumed? Why, there
are two ways. We might have been consumed in hell. If God had been a changing
God, the “sons of Jacob” here this morning, might have been consumed in hell;
but for God’s unchanging love I should have been a faggot in the fire. But
there is a way of being consumed in this world; there is such a things as
being condemned before you die-”condemned already;” there is such a thing as
being alive, and yet being absolutely dead. We might have been left to our
own devices, and then where should we have been now? Revelling with the
drunkard, blaspheming Almighty God. Oh? had he left you, dearly beloved, had
he been a changing God, ye had been amongst the filthiest of the filthy, and
the vilest of the vile. Cannot you remember in your life, seasons similar to
those I have felt? I have gone right to the edge of sin; some strong
temptation has taken hold of both my arms, so that I could not wrestle with
it. I have been pushed alone, dragged as by an awful satanic power to the
very edge of some horrid precipice. I have looked down, down, down, and seen
my portion; I quivered on the brink of ruin. I have been horrified, as, with
my hair upright, I have thought of the sin I was about to commit, the
horrible pit into which I was about to fall. A strong arm hath saved me. I
have started back and cried, O God! could I have gone so near sin, and yet
come back again? Could I have walked right up to the furnace and not fallen
down, like Nebuchadnezzar’s strong men, devoured by the very heat? Oh! is it
possible I should be here this morning, when I think of the sins I have
committed, and the crimes which have crossed my wicked imagination? Yes, I am
here, unconsumed, because the Lord changes not. Oh! if he had changed, we
should have been consumed by ourselves; for after all, Mr. Self is the worst
enemy a Christian has. We should have proved suicides to our own souls; we
should have mixed the cup of poison for our own spirits, if the Lord had not
been an unchanging God, and dashed the cup out of our hands when we were
about to drink it. Then we should have been consumed by God himself if he had
not been a changeless God. We call God a Father; but there is not a father in
this world who would not have killed all his children long ago, so provoked
would he have been with them, if he had been half as much troubled as God has
been with his family. He has the most troublesome family in the whole world-
unbelieving, ungrateful, disobedient, forgetful, rebellious, wandering,
murmuring, and stiffnecked. Well it is that he is longsuffering, or else he
would have taken not only the rod, but the sword to some of us long ago. But
there was nothing in us to love at first, so, there cannot be less now. John
Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it too, of a good woman
who said, in order to prove the doctrine of Election, “Ah! sir, the Lord must
have loved me before I was born, or else he would not have seen anything in
me to love afterwards.” I am sure it is true in my case, and true in respect
most of God’s people; for there is little to love in them after they are
born, that if he had not loved them before then, he would have seen no reason
to choose them since their good works did not win his affection, bad works
cannot sever that affection; since their righteousness did not bind his love
to them, so their wickedness cannot snap the golden links. He loved them out
of pure sovereign grace, and he will love them still. But we should have been
consumed by the devil, and by our enemies-consumed by the world, consumed by
our sins, by our trials, and in a hundred other ways, if God had ever
changed.
Well, now, time fails us, and I can say but little. I have only just
cursorily touched on the text. I now hand it to you. May the Lord help you
“sons of Jacob” to take home this portion of meat; digest it well, and feed
upon it. May the Holy Ghost sweetly apply the glorious things that are
written! And may you have “a feast of fit things, of wines on the less well
refined!” Remember God is the same, whatever is removed. Your friends may be
disaffected, your ministers may be taken away, every thing may change, but
God does not. Your brethren my change and cast out your name as vile: but God
will love you still. Let your station in life change, and your property by
gone; let your whole life be shaken, and you become weak and sickly; let
everything flee away-there is one place where change cannot put his finger;
there is one name on which mutability can never be written; there is one
heart which never can alter; that heart is God’s-that name Love.
“Trust him, he will ne’er deceive you.
Though you hardly of him deem;
He will never, never leave you,
Nor will let you quite leave him.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
