THE INHERITANCE
THE INHERITANCE
I desire to speak a little of the inheritance which God desires us to occupy and enjoy, which it says in this scripture, He has chosen. “He shall choose our inheritance for us.” The One who is the King of all the earth, that is to say, who is supreme in all the earth, who can choose any part of it He likes — “He shall choose our inheritance for us.” There is something that He has chosen particularly as the inheritance that He desires us to occupy, and that inheritance in this psalm is “the excellency of Jacob whom he loved.” He wants us to inherit that. It is a thought that is worthy of consideration — the excellency of Jacob; there is nothing better than what is excellent. We have all learned that excellency is superlative, and scripture speaks of the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. God wants us to inherit that as our portion.
I understand Jacob to refer to the work of the Spirit of God. Abraham brings before us the Father — the source from whence all has come. Isaac refers to Christ as the Son in resurrection, the heavenly Man to whom everything belongs; but Jacob, as I understand it, refers to the work of the Spirit of God in us — poor feeble worms. God says, “Fear not thou worm, Jacob.” He is going to take up Jacob and make him excellent. God loved Jacob — “Jacob whom he loved” — “the excellency of Jacob.” That love is not the love of compassion, it is not the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God, it is the love of complacency that found in Jacob the very features that delighted the heart of God. They came out in a man who was in himself a worm of the earth — that is the inheritance. God wants us to inherit the work of the Spirit in our hearts, to be in our inheritance so that God can love us. It says, “Jacob have I loved,” not Israel, God loved Israel too, but Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.
One desires with the Lord’s help, to indicate what it was that God loved in Jacob, at least in some little way. “Jacob have I loved” — we are in the habit of thinking of Jacob as a crooked man in whom there is very little that God could love. Men of the world reading the history would say that the best man of the two was Esau, but God hated Esau. There is no unrighteousness with God, and the work of the Spirit is to deliver us from what God hates, and to attach us to what God loves, so that we love it and are marked by it. It becomes our inheritance which He has chosen for us to take possession of — what was lovable in Jacob — as being our inheritance.
I would like to just touch on that. The first feature in Jacob that God took account of, was that even before his birth there was a struggle. There was an instinctive struggle as to who was going to get the upper hand, that came out at the outset, and God loves to see that struggle. It is the first lovable feature in the soul when there is a struggle. God loves to look down on men and women and see a struggle going on in their souls, as to who is going to get control. Rebecca did not understand it and she enquired of God, and God told her what it meant, that there were two kinds of men and one was going to get the upper hand. That is the first feature that the Spirit of God speaks about.
I am sure there are some here in whom the struggle is going on. Do not be discouraged, God loves to see it. You see in the world there is no struggle, a man of the world does not struggle, the flesh and Satan dominate him, he is so absolutely controlled that there is no struggle, but as soon as there is anything of God in the soul, there is a struggle. When Jacob and Esau were born, the Spirit of God said that Jacob took Esau by the heel. Jacob instinctively had the sense that that man must be displaced — God loved Jacob for that. That instinct is in every Christian here. I do not think we belong to the people of God unless the instinct is there, that the first man has to go. When the gospel is received into the heart God conveys that to that heart. When light is received from God there is a sense that Christ must be supreme, the second Man must be first and the first man must give place. The instinct is there with us all and God loves to see it.
Then, as Jacob grew up, you find other features coming out that God loved. It says when the boys grew that Jacob was a plain man, that is a homely, simple man, dwelling in tents — God loved him for that. God loves the homely men dwelling in tents, there is no pretension about a tent. He was a simple kind of man who lived in tents — sojourned with Abraham and Isaac in tents. He had a family, with all the limitations and restrictions that a family brings a man. A family brings limitations, a man with a family cannot do what he likes, he has restrictions, but he has a sphere for his affections, he has a wife and children, he cannot go here, there and everywhere, and so he lives simply. Jacob lived simply apart from the pretension of the world that was around him. It says he was a homely man and he dwelt in tents. The Spirit of God mentions that as being a feature that God loved in Jacob.
Jacob was also marked by this, that he put a great price on the blessing of God. I know that he went the wrong way to get it, but the secret of many of his actions was, that he wanted above everything else on earth, to have God’s blessing, and God loved him for that. If there is a brother or sister that puts the blessing of God before everything, they are inheriting the excellency of Jacob. That is more than their education, more than the prosperity of their business, more than the comfort of their homes, more than anything, more than life — the blessing of God. That is what Jacob wanted and God loved Jacob, He would convey to Jacob the sense of His love, His deep interest in him, even, when for the moment he is suffering for his mistakes. He had left his father’s house and was in the desert on a journey. He took a stone for a pillow and lay down in the place and God conveyed to Jacob there how deeply interested He was in him. Jacob dreamed that he saw from where he lay a ladder which reached right up to heaven, and God was at the top of the ladder. God conveyed to Jacob how deeply interested He was in him, and that He would be with him, in every place where he went. God has a great interest in every soul that wants His blessing, however bitter and hard may be the circumstances, with a stone for a pillow it may be, but God used even that occasion to convey to Jacob’s heart how deeply He was interested in him.
Then you find more lovable features coming out, though indeed some unlovely ones are seen in Laban’s house. When Joseph was born Jacob said, “Let me go”, he was prepared to leave Laban’s house and all that he had lived in, when he saw Joseph, and God loved Jacob for that. He got a fresh glimpse of Christ typically, he loved the one who was a wondrous figure of Christ, and the sight of him made him desire to leave everything — God loved Jacob for that. That is what the Lord loves to see. He brings Himself before our hearts, why? So that we should pack up and leave the things we have lived in. Naturally we live in the things of this life. Jacob said that, “If God will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God.” But when he sees Joseph he is prepared to leave all the things of this life, and to set out in faith. Dear Christian friend, perhaps that is what God has to say to you, He would give you such an impression of Christ, that you would in spirit leave all that has bound you, may be father, mother, husband, wife, brethren, business or religious associations; but when you get a glimpse of Christ you will say like Jacob, “Let me go”. He was prepared to move under the influence of what he saw in Joseph, and as he moved you find other features in which God finds great joy.
The one I want to speak of particularly is when Jacob went to meet Esau. He sent over the brook, his flocks, his herds, his menservants, his maidservants, his wives and his children, and he was left alone with God. That was a deliberate act on Jacob’s part; he sent over the brook everything he had on earth and he remained alone all night with God and God loved him for it. God loves those who seek personal intercourse with Him, those who are prepared to withdraw in spirit from all that they have and all the activities of this life, to have to do with God. What came out of that? A Man wrestled all night with him, and Jacob clung to Him and said, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me.” Just as he began, so now, he wants the blessing, but now he does not want it as stealing it from Esau, he wants it direct from God. He says, “ I will not let thee go except thou bless me.” What a thing for the heart of God, to come from this poor worm of a man, the man who says, “I will not leave you unless you bless me, I want your blessing”. “The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich and he addeth no sorrow with it.” Jacob was blessed, his name was changed, and he learned there to be dependent upon God — and God loved Jacob. Jacob moved from that spot halting on his thigh, a dependent man, but a man that God loved.
How happy it is, if that lovable feature is inherited by us, that we find opportunities to have to do with God alone. One fears that we do not know much about it, to let wives and children, flocks and herds go over the brook and have to do with God in the secret of our souls alone. It is part of the inheritance of the excellency of Jacob whom God loved, to have to do with God in secret alone. God loves such.
Then you find several other features. God passed Jacob through much discipline, and he reached these things through discipline, but there came a point, when he was prepared as an old man to make another move. It is a tremendous test to old men to move, it is a bitter test much more so to old men than to young ones. Jacob had been living in Canaan for many years and he never expected to move, he thought the position was settled for the rest of his life. That is what some of us think about certain features of the truth, we thought we had seen certain things and there would never be a change. Jacob was an old man, his family had grown up around him, but the day came when there came wagons and food and substance, which brought to Jacob’s heart, that he could even yet get a fresh glimpse of the greatness and glory of Joseph, a view that he had never had before. His heart failed within him as he thought of it, for he never expected to have another view of Joseph, he thought he had seen all of Joseph that there was to see; but the substance came in such abundance from Joseph, that it convinced Jacob that he might yet see Joseph, and old as he was he set out. He said, “It is enough, Joseph my son is yet alive, I will go and see him before I die.” He would have one more view of that blessed one, greater than any he had before.
The Lord loved to see Jacob move, He loved to see that old man leave his home and all, to set his eyes on Joseph. What a joy! What a lovable man, that would leave old-age comforts to get a glimpse of Christ in a new setting, in a new way beyond anything he had ever seen before. The Lord is doing that now, there is an apprehension of Christ available to His own now, greater than we have had before in our lives. One would entreat the old ones affectionately, to be prepared to move with the wagons and substance that Joseph has sent to induce us to come. The testimony to the greatness of Christ is confirmed with true substance from Himself. It is brought by those whom He uses to induce our hearts to move.
Then you see Jacob goes down into Egypt and you see him at the end of his life a most lovable man — a man that God loves. It says, “by faith Jacob when he was a-dying”, what an end! You see him beginning with a struggle and the grasping of Esau’s heel, but what an end! God’s purpose for us is always to have a better end than the beginning. It says, “By faith Jacob when he was a-dying”. What does he do? He blesses both the sons of Joseph. The Spirit of God selects that as the great act of faith, the great expression of the light that is burning in his heart, for that is what faith is — light in the soul. That light is shining so brightly in Jacob when he is dying, that he blesses the sons of Joseph, and how does he bless them? He puts his right hand, the hand of power, on the head of the younger, on Ephraim’s. He is blind, he has not natural sight at all, and Joseph thinks Jacob did not see and it displeased him. He says, “Not so my father for this is the firstborn”, referring to Manasseh, but Jacob said, “I know it, my son.” He had passed through a life of discipline and he knew it. He guided his hands wittingly, it was a deliberate act, no accident.
How did he know? He knew it through discipline, he knew it through the experiences he had learned — the worthlessness and untrustworthiness of the first man. The place of blessing and power with God and trustworthiness was in relation to the second Man.
“I know it,” what a lesson it is to really know it. We all, every Christian knows it, as light and instinctively, but Jacob knew it experimentally by the Spirit’s work in his soul. Jacob had had a firstborn and had great joy, as we all have had, in our firstborn — excellency and dignity. Reuben was his firstborn and excellency is connected with his firstborn, every hope of his heart was once centred in Reuben, but he came in bitter heart-breaking experience to the truth that he could not trust him — unstable as water. Reuben could not be trusted with the most precious things — what a lesson for Jacob’s heart, untrustworthiness in Reuben! That is what our hearts are naturally and we have to learn it; we cannot trust the natural heart with the most precious things on earth — “he that trusts his own heart is a fool.” That is not only to be light but something we know subjectively.
Then we get Joseph, the birthright was Joseph’s, not because he was the firstborn historically but by moral right. He was one of the youngest but he takes Reuben’s place because of moral right to have it. The birthright was Joseph’s and Jacob learns that he could trust Joseph everywhere, he could trust him in his father’s house, he could trust him everywhere. Jacob had a sense of that when he made him that coat of many colours, for he knew that Joseph could be adorned with many colours, he was fit to have any colour. He could trust Joseph in the field; some of us have to be very humble about our movements in the field. What are we doing in the field — in the world? Joseph went into the field, and all he went there for was to seek his brethren, he could be trusted to seek them. Some found him and said “Whom seekest thou?” He said, “I seek my brethren”, that is all. He could be trusted in Potiphar’s house. Potiphar found it out as well, and he put the whole house under the care of Joseph, everything in Potiphar’s house could be handed over to Joseph. He could be trusted in the prison; for the keeper of the prison put the prisoners in the hands of Joseph — the prisoners were safe in Joseph’s keeping. He could be trusted on the throne of Pharaoh — “only in the throne will I be greater than thou.” He could trust him even to that, “according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled.” Jacob knew all that when he blessed the two sons of Joseph, he understood that the second man was the trustworthy man, so he guided his hands wittingly, and he crossed them and blessed Ephraim and Manasseh. He knowingly and deliberately recognised the second Man as being the one who is pre-eminent.
Then it says, “he worshipped”, by faith he blessed the two sons of Joseph and worshipped. God loves worshippers. Worship is the result of a sense in the heart of what God is. The elders fall down and worship, they worship with the sense in their hearts of the greatness of God, they fall down and worship. Not because of what they are through experience, but because God is so great. Jacob worshipped, he had learned through a long life what God was. He had been through some bitter experiences, but he had learned God. The very moment when his head was on a pillow of stone he learned about God and God’s house. He learned it when Rachel died, a terrible thing to his heart that he never forgot to the end of his days. Yet on that occasion he received Benjamin, the son of his right hand. He changed his name from “Ben-oni”, son of my sorrow, to “Benjamin”, son of my right hand — power comes out of sorrow — such is God.
He learned, too, that the things that seemed against him were often God’s greatest servants to bless him. He said “Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me”, but he learned afterwards what God was. These very things were, in the hand of God, the means of profound blessing to the whole earth, as well as to Jacob. So he worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff, he has learned to be a dependent man and God loved him.
When Jesus prayed at His baptism, it says the heavens were opened and a voice said “Thou art my beloved Son”, Luke 3: 22. God expresses His pleasure and delight in that praying Man. Then again, on the mount it says, “as he prayed the fashion of his countenance was altered”, and there came a voice, “This is my beloved Son, hear him”. God does not tell us what He is going to say, but He says “Hear him”. May the Lord thus keep us to inherit the excellence of Jacob.