Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1630
Delivered on Thursday Evening, February 3, 1881
“Behold I am with you.” Genesis 28:15.
“I will be with you.” Genesis 31:3.
“The God of my father has been with me.” Genesis 31:5.
“Behold, I die: but God shall be with you.” Genesis 48:21.
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. God is sovereign, He is not bound to dispense His favors from father to son. And when He does so, we are to admire His Grace. Do not imagine that there is such a thing as hereditary piety—it must be worked in each individual by the same Spirit. Still, it is one of the highest privileges that God has ever been pleased to grant to me that I can rejoice in a father and a grandfather who trained me in the fear of God! And I congratulate every young person who has such a pedigree. God bless you. Be not satisfied unless you, yourself, obtain such mercy as God gave to your ancestors and hear the Lord saying, “I am with you.”
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 you.” I have tried to think them out, that I might speak concerning them to you, but they are too full. I defy anybody to measure their height and depth, their length and breadth! That God should give to Jacob bread to eat and raiment to put on was much—but that is nothing compared with, “I am with you.” That God should send His angel with Jacob to protect Him would have been much—but it is nothing compared with, “I am with you.”
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! “I am with you.” Will God, in the very deed, dwell with men upon earth? Will God walk with a man and speak with him? “Lord, what is man, that You are mindful of him? And the son of man, that You visit him?” And yet He says, “I am with you.” You are in Your courts above and You make Heaven, Heaven by Your Presence, and yet You say, “I am with you.” What more could You say to a seraph than this—“I am with you”?
Why, when God is with a man there is a familiarity of condescension that is altogether unspeakable! It insures an infinite love. “I am with you.” God will not dwell with those He hates. He puts away the wicked of the earth like dross. He says to them, “Depart, I never knew you.” But to each one of His people He says, “I know you by your name; you are Mine. And, more than that, I am with you.” As a man delights to be with a friend, so are the delights of Christ with the sons of men whom He has chosen and redeemed with blood! “I am with you”—it means practical help. Whatever we undertake, God is with us in the undertaking. Whatever we endure, God is with us in the enduring! Wherever we wander, God is with us in our wandering!