THE DISCIPLINED MAN
Genesis 28: 10 to end; 48: 1-7, 14, 19; 49: 1, 2
The need of the moment is not only to find a passing pleasure in the things brought before us in ministry but to meditate upon them, and give ourselves wholly to them in prayer and exercise.
With this in view I thought it would be profitable to look at Jacob, as presenting to us the disciplined man. He stands before us as the man who was disciplined into his blessing. He did not take the way Abraham did, he stands in contrast to Abraham, but he reaches the same point at the end. This is suggested at the beginning of his history, and the end proves it. I shall also refer to some points in his history with the thought of giving encouragement to any who feel that we are under peculiar discipline at this time. I think that the history of Abraham and Jacob is far more interesting than that of Isaac or Joseph, though they are perhaps not so typical. If we read Hebrews it brings before us the way in which faith wrought. You will remember what it says in regard to Jacob, “By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff”, chap 11: 21. He was a worshipper. I do not know anything greater than that. I do not know that there is anything said about that in regard to the others. Jacob's history is intensely interesting. His was a tortuous history and he had a stormy pathway, but he had a bright sunset. He has a clear outlook: he is with God, he is looking at things in the light of God, he has reached what was proposed at the beginning, that is, the house of God, and he answers to the name which God gave him in chapter 32 and confirmed in chapter 35, he is Israel now. Many of us know very well we have not walked normally, but it is a very great encouragement to know we are in the hands of our God, and that He is set for our blessing and will never let go His purpose.
Whatever our ways may be He holds to His purpose and His purpose is to bless us. What a magnificent thing that is, in the midst of our exercises and sorrows! God has given us the truth that it might be wrought in our souls, in order that there might be an answer to it for His pleasure. We cannot play with these things. There is a danger on our side of being engaged with it in a mental way, and finding mental pleasure in the consideration of truth; but what God wants to do is to reach the heart and conscience through exercise according to the light of the truth. I am speaking now of divine knowledge: your knowledge lies in the knowledge of God Himself, and you reach that through discipline.
Now the pattern of a disciplined man is Jacob. He has a large place in the prophets and the Psalms. God says in Psalm 24, “This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob”, v 46. That is to say, they will be encouraged by-and-by with the mercy of God as shown to Jacob. They will say, ‘If He was all that to Jacob!’ He proved the longsuffering of God, and Jacob turned into Israel. Jacob is the natural man, the failing man, the man who needed to be disciplined into his blessing, and Israel by-and-by will come into blessing in that way.
Now I will say a word suggestively on the features of discipline. I think scripture presents discipline in four distinct ways. There is corrective discipline, and that is presented to us in connection with the Lord's supper in 1 Corinthians 11; then there is preventive discipline, and that is connected with the Lord's people in His service. In the case of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, we read of a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him. How the Lord cares for us in every way! Now discipline is presented to us again in Hebrews 12, “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth”. There the discipline is not so specific, but is more general and formative, that we might be made partakers of His holiness. That is the great point in Hebrews 12. It is discipline that forms you.
In John 15 we have reproductive discipline, which is sweeter than all. It is the gracious way in which He purges us that we might bring forth much fruit. Hence the four distinct features of discipline, as another has pointed out, are (1) corrective, (2) preventive, (3) formative, and (4) reproductive.
Now let us consider Jacob. He stands in contrast to Abraham; his way was exceedingly tortuous because of what he was. He was a most crooked man, but he stands in contrast to Esau because God saw in that man's heart an appreciation of blessing. He was not like Esau, who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Esau was a nice man outwardly, but he did not appreciate his birthright. But Jacob appreciated the blessing of God. He took a tortuous way to get it, but he appreciated it. The way he took to get the blessing was all wrong, and if you take a wrong course you have to suffer the consequences of it. So Jacob had to flee from the wrath of his brother. The deceiver was deceived. That a man sows that shall he also reap. But God had regard to that poor lad there in his loneliness. It was night time, and if God visits you in the night it is that He might bring in the day. God proposed to bless Jacob, and what he saw was a ladder which reached to heaven. That suggests the thought of the future for this world, when the world will be no longer divorced from heaven. What is the meaning of all the trial and tears and sorrow? I would like you to get the moral reason for it all. The reason is that earth is divorced from heaven; suffering is the result of the divorcement of earth from heaven. We have to pray, “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth”, Luke 11: 2. But the time is coming when the divorcement will be over. That is the solution of it: God's will will be done. What a simple thing, but how profound and far-reaching! This world is governed by man's will. We pray, “Thy will be done”. There is no confusion in heaven, there are no tears, no bereavement, and why not? All is under one will and all that will is love. I would like you to get the moral sense of that in your soul; if you have been brought to God it is that you may understand the reason for all these things.
Well, there was this lad, and it is very wonderful he was to be the one from whom should spring all the blessing that this earth awaits. This earth will never be right until God's earthly people Israel have their place as the centre of all blessing for it. Deuteronomy 32: 8 is the key of the ways of God. All the nations of the earth are round the twelve tribes of Israel. You cannot have anything here for man until Israel is established as the centre of the earth; and it is through this man, Jacob, that it is coming to pass. The promise was given to Abraham that all the nations of the earth should be blessed through him, and it is confirmed here to Jacob. Well now, he wakes up and he could not realise it. How could he? Think of the work that had to be done in him before he could appreciate such a thing; but God tells him the best thing at the start, and then works that he may be in the good of it at the end. He said, “How dreadful is this place”; but it was not a dreadful place to him at the close. Then he makes a bargain with God. He limits God. He says in effect, If He brings me back then I will do so and so. How little he understood the marvellous blessing he was taken up for, and yet at the same time there was confidence in God, feeble though it was; and he proceeds on his journey and God took care of him. There is no communion with God, but God cares for him providentially.
He works fourteen years for his wives and God takes care of him. “Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand”, Ps 73: 23. How sweet to know that God takes care of us, that He holds us. Then he was disappointed and he had hard thoughts of God. What an evil thing to have hard thoughts of God and yet be a Christian! God knows all about it. We say, He has denied me this, that and the other. He will not keep anything back from you that is good. He is good in what He gives, and He is good in what He withholds.
Now in chapter 32 Jacob comes back, and he sees the angels of God and says, “This is God’s host”, v 2. He was right doctrinally, but he was not right subjectively; although he said it, he went home and contradicted it in practice. We say uncommonly fine things at our readings sometimes, but what do we do when we go away? Do you not think it ought to exercise us? This man said, “This is God’s host”, and yet there he is trembling before his brother Esau, when the knowledge of God should have covered him. We would have thought the host of God would have dispelled every fear, for God was saying in that revelation ‘I am for you’. Then he tries to pray. Often we make our plans first, and then pray to God. Let the truth come to expose you. One of the greatest blessings of the moment is to know where you are in your soul's history with God. God wants us to be in the reality of our true condition as in His sight. Never mind about the brethren, it is what you are with God, that is the point.
Well, all through this dark night it is the working of his will. It is quite possible for people to be going on in the routine of what is proper from scripture, and yet not to be making a single step forward spiritually. We cannot judge people merely by their outward interests, it is exercise that we want. And so he went through this long night wrestling with God. As long as your will works you will never make a step forward spiritually. The Lord would call your attention to your present spiritual condition as in His sight. I do not say that to cast you in upon yourself, but to bring you to God. Jacob wrestled all night until the day was breaking, and he said, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me”, chap 32: 26. But God put His hand out and took the strength out of him, and brought him into a position where wrestling was over and communion came in ; and He said, “What is thy name?” “Jacob”. Thou shalt “be called no more Jacob, but Israel”, v 27, 28. God said, ‘I will give you that name, and the same day you shall answer to it’. He was beginning to answer to it in clinging. He was a crippled man, but the sun was shining. Oh! How blessed it is, there he was ever to cling. The sorrows that are deepest are the secret sorrows that no one could ever know but yourself and the blessed God who permits them to come upon you. It is not what is visible to the eye, nor the greatest sorrow that you can speak of. It is always there and always to be there, but you have the face of God shining on you.
Then he went on from there, and he built an altar and called it “El-elohe-Israel” (chap 33: 20), and he called on the name of the Lord. That is what God is to me. It was very beautiful as far as it went, but, alas! The idols were still there, and so there was disgrace and trouble. It always is so if you make yourself the centre. The end of it was he said, You have made my name to stink and I shall perish. He was in dire distress and he was afraid. He was not with God.
If you are with God you are not afraid of anybody save yourself. People will be afraid of you; persecution is always the result of fear that is the reason why God's people are persecuted. Then there was great fear, “for God was in the generation of the righteous”.
Then God says to Jacob, “go up to Bethel” (chap 35: 1), and then he makes a move. Every spiritual movement towards God is the result of the removal of that which hinders. Jacob said, Put away the idols: we are going up to a holy place. There was a great movement. Are you on that line? Are you moving towards God? Do you desire to have communion with God? Do you ever go to Him and say, ‘I want to come near to you?’ What do you think He will do? He will point out this, and that, and say, ‘That is the hindrance; if you want to come near to Me you must put it away’. It is the little fox that spoils the vine. If you ask God to shew you what is the hindrance, do you not think He would delight to do it? Suppose He does, are you prepared to give it up? I beg your attention to these little exhortations. Well, Jacob goes up, and he rears an altar and calls it El-beth-el. Not El-elohe-Israel; not my blessing. It literally means, ‘God, the God of his house’. You are in the house of God and your interests are with God, and you see everything in the light of God.
Then God appears to him again and Jacob makes his start, for God reveals Himself now. “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Gen 17: 1), was what He had said to Abraham. So now Jacob is free, he has got God before him - ‘God, the God of the house’. Not what God is to me, but what God is in His house. He puts up a memorial. Abraham did not do that, though he was constantly with God, but he did not put up memorials. In the house of God there is the memorial of Christ. He pours a drink-offering on it. He is on the line of what is agreeable to God.
Does his discipline end now? No; Rebekah's nurse died, then Rachel, and Jacob put up a pillar upon her grave. It is to this he alludes at the close of his history. He sees everything in the light of God's interests, his own interests disappear entirely. He is a worshipper. He has got clear of himself, he has clear perceptions now. When you are in the house of God you begin to see everything in the light of the house of God. As he looked upon Joseph and his sons, he said, ‘You have earthly hopes, all my earthly hopes have gone ... Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little distance - only two miles to Bethlehem’. As another has said, ‘The grave of your earthly hopes is the birthplace of your heavenly hopes’. I ask you here, in His blessed presence, is He not competent to fill up every breach? Is it not greater gain to find Him, to find Christ? If you have to travel through sorrow to get a greater knowledge of Him, it is the greater gain. He is more than competent. So out of the sorrow shall come the sweet singing, the valley of Baca shall become a well. The Lord had a purpose to make known to me that I might sing my songs on stringed instruments. So Hezekiah said (see Darby Bible).
Now he blesses the sons of Joseph, and he crosses his hands. He has been stumbling about all his life, but his crooked pathway is all over now and he sees everything in the light of God's house. Joseph said, ‘You are making a mistake’. ‘No’, said Jacob, ‘I have been making mistakes all my life, but I am not making a mistake now’. He is in the light of the house of God. How beautiful it is to see our blessed Lord in John 11. We read, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus” (v 5); but that was not the governing principle. The governing principle was the glory of God. Will He not intervene? No. Is He unmindful of their sorrow? He was there in spirit; He saw them all through the days of darkness. Was He unsympathetic? No, He was not. The bereaved hearts were dear to Him, but He would not intervene. Why? Because of the glory of God.
I would like to call attention to this before I close. Mary was there. Isaiah 50: 10 gives us the condition in which Mary was. She was in the dark, but she was trusting. “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light?” What do you do then? Mary was sitting still in the house. Where do you learn to sit still? At His feet. I do not know what is going to be the end of this, but I will stay here until He calls for me. “Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God”. Then it goes on, “Behold, all ye that kindle a fire ... ye shall lie down in sorrow”. Are you looking round for sticks? you will always find sticks. You get the sticks together and you say, ‘That is very providential’. In the dark Jacob was wrestling; in the dark Mary was trusting. But the blessed Lord was in the light of day. “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?”, John 11: 9 Oh, for hearts to trust Him! Not to be wrestling in the night of our self-will, but if we have no light let us turn to God. Let us not gather providential sticks; it we do we shall lie down in sorrow.
Now let us return to Jacob for a moment. Jacob said, “Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father”. He was a prophet, and he portrays in a remarkable way the history of God's earthly people from start to finish. He had light, his eye was clear because he was delivered from his own interests. This chapter gives us the whole history of God's earthly people from start to finish.
May God in His great goodness be pleased to encourage every heart. Do not cherish the hope that there are going to be easier times here in the future, but there is going to be, if the Lord delays His return, a very great awakening of affection for Christ. If through your sorrow you get to know Him better, He will bring you forward to the very spot where the glory shines and maintain you there in all the brightness and blessedness of it.
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From ‘Mutual Comfort’, 1918