I will not leave thee, until I have done all that which I have spoken to thee of
Renewed pledges
There are two very observable facts which may be gathered from the joint study of the Bible and our own hearts.
1. That we are prone to distrust the promises of God, though we know Him to be unchangeable.
2. That God so condescends to our weakness that He reduplicates His pledges, in order, as it were, to compel us into confidence.
I. God speaks to His people of sin blotted out; He speaks of the thorough reconciliation which Christ has effected between Himself and the sinner; He speaks of His presence as accompanying the pilgrim through the wilderness; of His grace as sufficient for every trial which may or can be encountered. The things of which God speaks to His people spread themselves through the whole of the unmeasured hereafter, and it must follow that the pledge of our not being left until the things spoken of are done is tantamount to an assurance that we shall never be left and never forsaken.
II. The text is thus a kind of mighty guarantee, giving such a force to every declaration of God, that nothing but an unbelief the most obstinate can find ground for doubt or perplexity. It does not stand by itself, but comes in as an auxiliary in declaring God’s glorious intention. It is a provision against human faithlessness, words which may well be urged when a man is tempted with the thought that, after all, a thing spoken of is not a thing done, and which bid him throw from him the thought that God is not bound to perform whatever He has promised. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
God’s purpose and its fulfilment
1. God has a plan or scheme of life for every one of us, and His purposes embrace every part of that plan.
2. No words of God about our life will be left unfulfilled.
3. There is no unfinished life. The promise is a promise of--
(1) Presence.
(2) Intercourse.
(3) Fellowship. (S. Martin.)
The companionship of God
I. In what does the treasure of God’s companionship consist? It consists--
1. In the consciousness of God’s personality.
2. In the precious possessions he gives us--love, reason, conscience, will. To our conscience new light is given; to our love new spheres are open; our will receives new strength from the new example of His love and grace.
II. While these faculties are taken up the companionship of God becomes a reality of our daily life and our “exceeding great reward.” And then, besides, and with all this, we have the consciousness of communion with the Incarnate Word--“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever”; we know what to do and where to find Him. In this life we are to walk by faith. Our capacities are not intended to be satisfied here, but they shall be satisfied hereafter. (Bishop King.)
A fourfold comfort
Against his fourfold cross, here is a fourfold comfort.
1. Against the loss of his friends, “I will be with thee.”
2. Of his country, “I will give thee this land.”
3. Against his poverty, “Thou shalt spread abroad to the east, west,” &c.
4. His solitariness; angels shall attend thee, and “thy seed shall be as the dust,” &c. And “who can count the dust of Jacob,” said Balsam Num_23:10). Now, whatsoever God spake herewith Jacob, He spake with us, as well as with him, saith Hoses (Hoses. 12:4). (J. Trapp.)
Purpose in a promise
Every true man’s life is charged with a purpose of God, which will mould it and master it, so as that it may best work out His glory. He who notes the fall of the sparrow sees, numbers, and knows each human soul. He has intrusted it with a certain office and privilege. He has created it that it might glorify Him. He has endowed that soul with existence that it might be guided into His all-wise purpose, and afterwards received to share with Him His glory.
I. Observe, then, carefully in the first place, that this being the chief end of man, there will always have to be some secondary and subordinate ends. These must be reckoned in; for they all tend towards the main end, and indeed receive their entire value from their connection with that.
II. Observe, furthermore, that if there be so many subordinate purposes in the one purpose of God, there must of necessity be many instruments also.
III. Observe, in the third place, that with a purpose so complicated as God’s is, in order to introduce every man’s life into it, it will be possible that in some cases more than half the years which any given person lives will have to be spent just in rendering him ready to come in efficiently at the exact point when he is needed.
IV. Observe, once more, that if these varied instruments employed in carrying out the grand purpose are so many, and need so much preparation, there will be an evident necessity that a large number of teachers and trainers shall be kept at God’s service in instructing them. (C. S.Robinson, D. D.)
The Keeper of Israel
I. THE COMPANY. Jehovah Himself.
II. THE OFFICE. The Keeper of Israel.
III. THE MARCH. “All places whither thou goest.”
IV. THE ENGAGEMENT. “I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” (J. Irons.)
Jacob’s protector
I. GOD’S PRESENCE.
II. PROTECTION.
III. GUIDANCE.
IV. FAITHFULNESS. (C. Clayton, M. A.)
Four choice sentences
I. First, turn to the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis, at the fifteenth verse, and read of PRESENT BLESSING. The Lord said to His servant Jacob, “Behold, I am with thee.”
1. Jacob was the inheritor of a great blessing from his fathers, for this sentence was spoken in connection with the following words,” I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.” It is an inexpressible privilege, to be able to look back to father and grandfather, and perhaps farther still, and to say, “We come of a house which has served the Lord as far back as history can inform us.” Descended from Christians, we have a greater honour than being descended from princes. There is no heraldry like the heraldry of the saints. Be not satisfied unless you yourself obtain such mercy as God gave to your ancestors, and hear the Lord saying, “I am with thee.”
2. This mercy was brought home to Jacob at a time when he greatly needed it. He had just left his father’s house, and he felt himself alone. He was coming into special trial, and then it was that he received a fuller understanding of the privilege which God had in store for him. Let me read the words to you--“I am with thee.” That God should send His angel with Jacob to protect him would have been much; but it is nothing compared with, “I am with thee.” This includes countless blessings, but it is in itself a great deal more than all the blessings we can conceive of. There are many fruits that come of it, but the tree that yields them is better than the fruit.
3. Why, when God is with a man there is a familiarity of condescension that is altogether unspeakable: it ensures an infinite love. “I am with thee.” God will not dwell with those He hates.
4. “I am with thee”--it means practical help. Whatever we undertake, God is with us in the undertaking; whatever we endure, God is with us in the enduring; whithersoever we wander, God is with us in our wandering. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” If God be with us, can we ever be exiled or banished? If God be with us, what can we not do? If God be with us, what can we not endure?
II. Now turn to the thirty-first chapter of Genesis, at the third verse, and read these words--“I will be with thee.” We will call this FUTURE BLESSING. It is almost unnecessary to take this second text; for if it is written, “I am with thee,” you may depend upon it that He will be with us, for God does not forsake His people.
III. I want to go a step further, and come, in the third place, to EXPERIENCED BLESSINGS. Let us look at Jacob’s experience. Did Jacob find God to be with him? Turn to the thirty-first chapter again, and read the fifth verse. Up to as far as the time that he was about to leave Laban, he says--“The God of my father hath been with me.” I have read that testimony with great joy. I thought of Jacob thus--Well, you certainly were not eminent for grace while with Laban. You were plotting and scheming--you against Laban and Laban against you; and yet your witness is, “The God of my father hath been with me.” This is all the more encouraging as coming from you. Jacob seems to say of his God: It was He that gave me my wife and my children; it was He that prospered me in the teeth of those who tried to rob me; the God of my father hath been with me notwithstanding all my shortcomings. I trust that some of you can bear the like witness. Though you have net been all that you could wish in the Christian life, yet you can say, “The God of my father has been with me.” Now, we will look at him a little further on, in the thirty-fifth chapter, and the third verse: there we shall find him saying--“Let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.” As I have already said, he left Laban’s house; and it was a very venturesome journey, but God was with him: Jacob tells us that so it was. Poor Jacob was full of fear when he heard that Esau was coming to meet him. You can see that by the way in which he divided his flocks and his herds, and set apart so large a present for Esau. But God does not leave His people because of their fears. I am so thankful for that. There was a night of wrestling with Jacob. On that day, too, I have no doubt, Jacob was very much cast down, because he remembered his sin. He knew he had ill-treated Esau, and robbed him of the blessing; but, for all that, he came with a repentant heart to submit himself before his brother and to do what he could to please him. Because of this, God was with him. At the close of his life we find Jacob more fully than ever confessing that the presence of God had been with him. I read you the passage where he wished that the God that had been with him might be with his grandsons in the selfsame way--the forty-eighth chapter, at the fifteenth and sixteenth verses. “He blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads.” There is his last testimony to the faithfulness of God. He had lost Rachel--oh, how it stung his heart! but he says, “God redeemed me from all evil.” There had come a great famine in the land; but he says that God had fed him all his life long. He had lost Joseph, and that had been a great sorrow; but now, in looking back, he sees that even then God was redeeming him from all evil. He said once, “Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me”; but now he eats his words, and says, “The Lord hath redeemed me from all evil.” He now believes that God had been always with him, had fed him always, and redeemed him always, and blessed him always. Now, mark you, if you trust in God, this shall be your verdict at the close of life.
IV. We have had present blessing; we have had future blessing; we have had experienced blessing three times over; and now we go to TRANSMITTED BLESSING; for we find Jacob transmitting the blessing to his son and to his grandson. Read in the forty-eighth chapter, at the twenty-first verse “Behold, I die: but God shall be with you.” I commenced by noticing the blessing which passed on from Abraham to Isaac; and now we see that Jacob hands it on to Joseph, Manasseh, and to Ephraim--“I die: but God shall be with you.” Blessed be the everlasting God--if Abraham dies, there is Isaac; and if Isaac dies, there is Jacob; and if Jacob dies, there is Joseph; and if Joseph dies, Ephraim and Manasseh survive. The Lord shall never lack a champion to bear His standard high among the sons of men. Only let us pray God to raise up more faithful ministers. That ought to be our prayer day and night. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
