SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/17/2015
9:18 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Example
of Discipline
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Hosea
12:2-6, 12
Message of the
verses: “2 The LORD also has a
dispute with Judah, And will punish Jacob according to his ways; He will repay him according to
his deeds. 3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel, And in his
maturity he contended with God. 4 Yes, he wrestled with the angel and
prevailed; He wept and sought His favor. He found Him at Bethel And there He
spoke with us, 5 Even the LORD, the God of hosts, The LORD is His name. 6 Therefore, return to your God,
Observe kindness and justice, And wait for your God continually.” “12 Now Jacob fled to the land of Aram, And
Israel worked for a wife, And for a wife he kept sheep.”
We know from our study of the book of Genesis that it was
God who called Abram who latter He renamed Abraham, and he became the father of
the Jewish nation. Matthew speaks of
this in Matthew 3:9 “and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ’We
have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is
able to raise up children to Abraham.”
However it is Jacob who built the twelve tribes of Israel as seen in
Genesis 46:8-27. In these verses from
Genesis the names of Jacob’s children are given showing that he built the
nation of Israel through his offspring.
Let us now look at an endnote from Dr. Wiersbe: “Israel’ is the new name God gave Jacob after
struggling with him at Jabbok (Gen. 32:24-32), but scholars aren’t agreed on
its meaning. The generally accepted
meaning is ‘prince with God’ i.e., a ‘God-controlled person.’ Others suggest ‘he persists with God,’ which
certainly fits the account; for Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord and
didn’t want to give in. Though Jacob
made some mistakes and did persist with God and seek God’s help, and God used
him to build the nation of Israel. Some
people have been too hard on Jacob, forgetting that believers in that day didn’t
have the advantages we have today. God
has deigned to call Himself ‘the God of Jacob,’ and that a very high compliment
to a great man.” On that note think
about how we read about many of the sins that the OT saints committed as they
are right there in the Word of God and Paul tells us that they are there to
help us learn not to do the same things.
It is also interesting that when we read the NT when people are spoken
of from the OT there that you do not read about their sins as they have all
been cleansed by the blood of Christ.
We see that Hosea used the name “Jacob” in this account
as Jacob illustrates God’s loving discipline. We can see this through several
different events that Hosea speaks of in the life of Jacob.
First we see that Jacob struggled with his brother in the
womb as Jacob tried to trip up his brother Esau and the name Jacob actually
means ‘he grasps the heel’ which is what Jacob did to Esau. Jacob was a deceiver and also a trickster and
again we look at an endnote from Dr. Wiersbe:
“All of us are Jacobs at heart according to Jeremiah 17:9 ‘The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?’ The Hebrew word translated ‘deceitful’ is the
root word for the name ‘Jacob.’ It means
‘to take by the heel, to supplant.’ The
English word ‘supplant’ comes from a Latin word that means to ‘to overthrow by tripping
up.’ Jacob tripped up his brother and
took his place when it came to both the family birthright and the blessing
(Gen. 27:36). Of course, God had given
both to Jacob before his birth (25:23), but instead of trusting God, Jacob used
his own devices to get what he wanted.
Faith is living without scheming.”
Next in the life of Jacob he obeyed God and left for
Shechem and went to Bethel and this is where He had his first encounter with
God. It was at Bethel that God revealed
Himself to Jacob and gave him promises for not only Jacob but for his descendents
too. It was also here that he made a solemn
vow to the Lord. When Jacob and his
family returned to Bethel it marked a new spiritual beginning for him and his
family. In all of this we can see the
patience and long-suffering of God. We
can put one of Dr. Wiersbe often used quote here where we read the quote from Alexander
Whyte who said that “the victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings.” I have claimed this quote in my life on many occasions.
It was while living near Bethel that Jacob felt the pain
of the loss of his wife Rachel, the wife that he worked for seven years to
receive from his uncle, seven years that seemed like hardly any time to
him. Rachel died giving birth to
Benjamin (Gen. 35:16-22) and one can imagine that this brought much pain to the
heart of Jacob. Rachel called this son “Ben-Oni
which means ‘son of my sorrow’ however Jacob renames him Benjamin which means ‘son
of my right hand.” We have an endnote to
look at concerning this section also: “These
two ames suggest the two aspects of our Lord’s life and ministry, a Man of
Sorrows and the resurrected Son exalted to the Father’s right hand.”
Let us look again at Hosea 12:5 which says “Even the
LORD, the God of hosts, The LORD is His name.
Dr. Wiersbe writes that the “divine title ‘Lord of Hosts’ [armies]’
(Hosea 12:5) reminds us of Jacob’s experience at Mahanaim when he was about to
meet his brother Esau (Gen. 32).
Mahanaim means ‘the two camps,’ for Jacob saw an army of angels watching
over his camp. He was afraid of Esau and
tried to appease him with gifts instead of trusting the Lord to deliver
him. After all, didn’t God promise to
care for Jacob and bring him safely back to Bethel? It was there that the angel of God wrestled
with Jacob and ‘broke’ him.”
As we look at how Jacob got his family we can see a
phrase that helps to explain how this happened, and that phrase is “what goes
around, comes around.” Jacob schemed to
get what he wanted from his brother Esau and now Laban would do the same thing
to Jacob as he tricked him with Leah whom he exchanged on their wedding night
supposing her to be Rachel. God seems to
disciplining Jacob and now Hosea uses these examples to show Israel that they
too are going to receive discipline from God.
7/17/2015 10:01 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment