Genesis 28:15

He knew not, but God foresaw what hardships he would meet with in his uncle's service, and therefore promiseth to preserve him in all places. God knows how to give his people graces and comforts accommodated to the events that shall be, as well as to those that are. He was now going as an exile into a place far distant, but God promiseth him to bring him again to this land.

This promise is sure to all the seed, Heb. xiii. 5 . [6.] Providences seemed to contradict the promises; he is therefore assured of the performance of them in their season: All shall be done that I have spoken to thee of. Note, Saying and doing are not two things with God, whatever they are with us.

And, behold, I am with thee,....

My discourse, this evening, will scarcely be a sermon—it will be an expository, rather, of the life and experience of Jacob upon one point. In order to bring it out I shall need four texts, but lest you should let any one of them slip, I will give them to you one at a time. I. First, turn to the 28th chapter of Genesis, at the 15th verse, and read OF PRESENT BLESSING. The Lord said to His servant Jacob, "Behold, I am with you." 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 your father, and the God of Isaac." It is an inexpressible privilege, dear Friends, to be able to look back to father and grandfather and, perhaps, still farther, 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 honor than being descended from princes! There is no heraldry like the heraldry of the saints. Jacob might be very thankful that, as God had blessed Abraham and had blessed Isaac, so He blessed him in the same way, speaking to him in the same terms as He had spoken to them, for He had expressly said to each of them, "I am with you." Are any of you the children of godly parents and has the Lord called you by His Grace? Then bless His name and take heed that you do nothing to dishonor an estate so honorable! Try and maintain, as long as you live, the good repute which in infinite love God has put upon your household. Are you, however, a child of godly parents and not yet converted? I would warn you against putting the slightest reliance upon your birth, for, remember, if Isaac was the child of Abraham, so also was Ishmael—but no blessing came to Ishmael of a spiritual kind. It is in vain to be born of blood, or of the will of the flesh. We must be born again from above.

My discourse, this evening, will scarcely be a sermon—it will be an expository, rather, of the life and experience of Jacob upon one point. In order to bring it out I shall need four texts, but lest you should let any one of them slip, I will give them to you one at a time. I. First, turn to the 28th chapter of Genesis, at the 15th verse, and read OF PRESENT BLESSING. The Lord said to His servant Jacob, "Behold, I am with you."