_I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies_, _and of all the
truth_, _which thou hast showed unto Thy servant_; _for with my staff
I passed over this Jordan_; _and now I am become two bands_.
THESE are Jacob’s words. They form part of the prayer which he offered
to GOD, when, on his return from Haran, he found that Esau was coming out
against him with four hundred men.
Mingled feelings must have possessed Jacob at this time; strange
remembrances must have been his! Twenty years ago he had passed over
that Jordan—near which he now stood—in flight from an enraged brother,
meditating and preparing vengeance for an act of fraudulent injury. What
a weary pilgrimage he had since followed; what sorrows, what desolations
had possessed his aching heart; how he had toiled and suffered wrong;
even now was fleeing from it! Yet, those twenty years gone, he was
coming back, not to the prospect of peace and happiness, not to the hope
that his brother had forgotten his vengeance, or that he would easily be
reconciled to him; but to face a mindful, aggravated avenger,
strengthened by four hundred followers. Surely he had fled and been in
exile to no purpose! Surely, by deferring it, he had increased his
trouble! It must have been that Jacob now acutely remembered the cause
of Esau’s anger; that he meditated on the mean advantage that he had
taken, the base fraud to which he had been a party, the lying, the
profanity of his lips, the evil deeds which led to evil consequences.
Ah! now he felt that man cannot sin with impunity, that transgression and
punishment are bound together as cause and effect, that vengeance, though
it tarry, though it slumber, though we run from it, and hide from it
many, many days, will yet accomplish its purpose, will surely repay!
Yes; and did he not feel that vengeance had even followed him; that he
had been its victim all those twenty years; that the frauds of Laban,
from first to last, and the strifes and dissensions of his own household
were the fruits of his deceit; that GOD had allowed them, that in a way
He had caused them in retaliation, in punishment of his sin! What an
experience to him, what a proof to us, my brethren, that sin will surely
find us out!
But Jacob must have had other and different thoughts—thoughts which
preponderated. As he called to mind his first passage over Jordan, did
not he remember the wonderful vision that was vouchsafed him of angels
descending to earth, ascending to heaven, in token of Divine providence,
of the intercourse between man and GOD? Did he not remember the Voice
which promised to be with him, to keep him in all places whither he went,
to bring him again to this land, to give it to him and to his seed after
him? Did he not look along those twenty years, and remember that GOD had
been with him, and that, by His command, he was now coming back; and did
he not hope, yes, even against hope, that GOD would be with him in the
coming struggle, that He would crown His mercy and goodness with a
present success, and with the establishment of himself and his seed in
the promised land? And one other remembrance surely he had. He
remembered the vow which in the fresh reverence of GOD’S presence, in
glad and grateful acceptance of His promises, he had solemnly made, “The
LORD shall be my GOD;” and he must have remembered how often he had
forgotten that vow, how generally he had slightly regarded it. These I
suppose to have been the feelings and remembrances which filled the
breast of Jacob, when he uttered the prayer in which our text occurs.
Observe how that prayer exhibits the right ordering of these feelings,
making prominent, putting uppermost thoughts and acknowledgments of GOD’S
goodness; and, in the moment of greatest peril, pausing to review
mercies, and to give thanks! There is no bitter lamentation of his hard
lot throughout those years of promised blessing; there is no pleading
with GOD, that if he had sinned he had surely been punished enough; there
is no mention of the merits of his contrite heart and amended life; there
is no angry feeling against Esau, no supplication that GOD would smite
and confound him. It is a godly, a model prayer. Betaking himself to
GOD in the hour of danger, as his only confidence and help, he humbly
urges no personal claim, but—that he is in the place of GOD’S commanding.
“‘Thou LORD that saidst unto me Return unto thy country and unto thy
kindred,’ I did not recklessly run into danger, I did not voluntarily
gratify the natural yearning of my poor heart. Thou broughtest me here,
O LORD protect me here;” and then having put forth himself, though but
such a little way, and coming to consider GOD, Who had shown him such
wondrous goodness, Who had fulfilled for him so truthfully all His
promises, he exclaims, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies,
and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto Thy servant: for with my
staff—as a solitary, poor individual—I passed over this Jordan, and now I
am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee.”
This seems to me, brethren, a fit theme for a sermon on New Year’s Eve.
Jacob, come back from Haran to Jordan, where he had made a covenant with
GOD, may well typify our return to-night to the sanctuary of GOD, whence
we went forth refreshed and pledged last New Year’s Eve. Jacob’s
reflections—he is the pattern of a mediator—may well provoke us to ask of
the days that are past, to remember all the way which the LORD our GOD
has led us. Jacob’s prayer shows us how to speak to GOD, what we should
feel in His presence on such an occasion as this, how to propitiate Him,
and to secure His defence and blessing in what lies before us.
I will not attempt, brethren, to picture the circumstances through which
you have passed in the year which is now all but ended; many of them I
could only guess at, many of them, to me, would be unimaginable. Recall
them for yourselves and meditate on them. They will teach you much, and
influence you much. I will address you simply as those who have made a
halt in the journey of life, and who want now GOD’S blessing in the known
and unknown dangers, anxieties, sufferings, and labours that lie before
you in the coming year.
Well: let your requests be made known unto GOD with prayer; above
all—yes! I mean it—_above all_, with thanksgiving.
But, first, before you approach GOD, to speak to Him, to ask of Him, to
thank Him, be sure that you can say to Him, “I am in the way of Thy
commandments.” If at this moment you are contentedly different from what
you know He would have you to be; if you indulge, or do not resolutely
renounce any besetting sin; if you deliberately neglect any positive
duty; if in will and affections, and aims, you are worldly and selfish,
and do not seek to be otherwise; if you are planning anything, or hoping
for anything which GOD does not approve; if you are shrinking from,
desiring to avoid, what He appoints; if you have not made up your minds
to try to be holy, to walk in the way of righteousness; then, brethren,
you are disqualified to pray to GOD. He hears not such. He has made no
promises to them: they are not His. Go fashion yourselves (He will
mercifully give you grace to do it) into the character that He loves; get
you into the paths that He has marked out; turn your face towards the
Holy Land, and then come to tell Him of your felt unworthiness, to speak
His praise, to intreat Him to be with you, to defend and prosper you; and
be sure you shall be welcomed and blessed.
But, supposing you not disqualified to come, supposing you bent on
coming, consider now your right posture and deportment before GOD. Ask
nothing of right, ask all out of felt unworthiness, and that, not simply
the unworthiness of the stranger, and alien, who want mercies which they
have never known, and speak to a GOD that has not hitherto been their
GOD, as the publican cried, “GOD be merciful to me a sinner;” but such an
unworthiness as belonged to the prodigal, such as he felt and groaned
under, when, reflecting on all the love and blessedness which he had
experienced in his father’s house, and had despised, and sinned against,
and seeing the Father coming towards him, ready to pardon, ready to
embrace, ready to lead him home again, he was humbled to the very dust
before Him, on account of his goodness, and declared himself unworthy to
be called His son. Oh, my brethren, if you do not feel unworthy, when
you approach the all-good and all-holy GOD, and if the feeling is not one
enlightened by, and full of the remembrances of blessings already
received, you are unfit to ask for further blessings. Not to have used
GOD’S blessings is great indignity; not to be thankful for them is base
ingratitude; but not to feel, that whether used or not used, appreciated
or not appreciated, they are many and undeserved—this is to deny that you
ever received them, or, claiming them as a right, to defy GOD to withhold
them! Cultivate then, I pray you, this feeling of unworthiness; and,
that you may do so the more readily, review the mercies, the promises
made true which you have received; and tell out their number, their kind,
and their magnitude to the GOD Who gave them, and would have them
acknowledged. “With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am
become two bands.” Now the argument of these words is, “I do not come to
Thee, professing that I am a fit person to be helped, but I claim Thee as
a GOD who are wont to help such as I am. I am not worthy of the least of
Thy mercies: but yet Thou hast shown me marvellous mercies. I possess
now the evidences and pledges of Thy goodness. Therefore I pray for, I
humbly count on further blessing, not because I am a holy man, but
because Thou art a good GOD, and My good GOD.” It is an argument which
prevails with GOD. He is pleased to see that we recognise His former
gifts, that we make _them_—and not ourselves, our love of Him, our
obedience, our prayers, and fastings, and study of His Word, and use of
His grace—the ground of application. He likes that His consistent
faithfulness should be invoked; that since He has made a beginning, just
on that very account, He should be looked to (so as it be humbly), to
continue His work, and to accomplish it. When you go to GOD to ask for
fresh blessings, you cannot take with you better and more effectual words
than those which make mention of, which exhibit as promises and pledges,
what you have already received.
But these words are not simply an argument for further help; they are,
besides, a free acknowledgment, a pure praise of what has been given.
They may be the plea of a beseeching heart, but they are besides the
tribute of a grateful heart; and it is in this sense, brethren, that I
specially wish you to adopt them to-night, and to make them a
thanksgiving to GOD for past mercies reviewed. “With my staff I passed
over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.” Jacob might have found
mercies enough to enlist his gratitude in any one year, or circumstance
of his exile and pilgrimage, and doubtless he reviewed each and all
particularly; but in his speech he comprehended all in a general mention
of them, and summed them up, and demonstrated them by pointing to their
effect. “Now I am become two bands.” Review your past mercies, consider
how GOD has been with you at all times, and has ever been doing you good.
Call to mind what progress you have been able to make spiritual or
temporal; what success has attended you; what friends have been given
you; what dangers you have narrowly escaped; what sicknesses recovered
from; what wounds been healed, what troubles overcome, what tears
staunched. Have they not caused you, like Jacob, to increase from the
solitariness and poverty of that passing over Jordan, to the riches and
prosperity of the two bands? Perhaps you say, you cannot trace such
progress; you are much the same outwardly and inwardly, as you have been
from the time that you can first remember. Then, brethren, you can
furnish your own testimony, that GOD has dealt better with you than He
did with Jacob, that your first state, your continued state has been all
like his last. O discern and bless GOD for those least heeded but
greatest mercies, the mercies which come to us at the beginning, and
follow us all the days of our life—the continued prosperity of our
family, the continued harmony and love, the bread always sure, the right
understanding early implanted, the fear of the LORD from our youth.
There is a way of travelling in our days which is so smooth, that often
we cannot tell that we are moving; and there is a manner of blessing, so
uninterrupted, so uniform, so without roughnesses and stoppages and ups
and downs, that if we be not on the lookout, we may fancy that we are not
blessed at all. Let not this be your case. Do not refuse to be
grateful, because all goes well with you, because there is nothing that
needs to be supplied, because nothing is taken away from you. Rather,
let the measure of your blessedness be also the measure of your praise
and the strength of your resolution. “Surely goodness and mercy have
followed me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the
LORD for ever.”
But your object, perhaps, “Mine has not been this life of uninterrupted
prosperity, but, on the contrary, one of continued adversity. It is
Jacob’s first, not his last estate, that has been always mine.” What do
you mean? That you were not born rich, nor influential, nor of honoured
family? That you have not the wisdom of the philosopher, the dignity of
the prince, the opulence of the successful merchant, the leisure of
independent private life? That may be. Your state may be the reverse of
all this, and yet be the state of the “two bands.” External prosperity
in Jacob’s time was commonly, yet not always, the sign of spiritual
blessings; in Gospel days, with our better light, and greater power of
appreciation of the reality, the sign is not so often afforded,
frequently the most favoured are without it; yea, and often it abides
with the unblessed as the mocking substitute for true blessedness. If
you are without GOD in the world; if you do not feel Him about your bed,
and about your path; if you do not live in His fear, and hope for His
mercies, and His rewards; if the thought of Him does not moderate your
worldly joy, and direct your aims, and leaven your worldly work; if His
comfort does not dry your tears, His strength support you, His grace
sanctify you, then—no matter what your outward state, and your
possessions, your powers, your happiness—you are poor and unblessed. But
if He is thus with you in all your ways, if you have resolved, and are
keeping the resolution, “The LORD shall be my GOD,” then is yours the
state, or it is growing towards the state of the “two bands.” One more
objection somewhat akin to this last, must be answered. There are some
who say, “Mine was once the state of the two bands: it has long since
been—or it is fast becoming—solitariness and the single staff. All thing
are against me. Nothing that I put my hand to seems to prosper; I come
into misfortune; the fountains of joy are dried up; my hope, my stay, are
taken from me. When I look back upon the past, I look as it were up an
incline down which I have rolled, or towards a pinnacle whence I have
been cast down.” Now, of course, my brethren, all this may be the result
of the displeasure of GOD, consequent upon your sin, or neglect of Him.
Outward adversity is sometimes the effect of His wrath, sometimes it is
the chastisement of displeasure, and the discipline of correction. If
then in your heart, you know that you deserve such wrath, or need such
correction (even then it is a blessing, and you ought to praise GOD for
it, but still) you may be sure that it is the mark of disapprobation,
something for you to grieve over, and seek to have removed. But if the
testimony of your conscience is that you walk with GOD, then are these
so-called reverses very blessings, not declines but advances, not
hindrances but helps, tokens of GOD’S love upraisings of you towards
heaven. Oh be like Jacob; count all mercy, get rid of selfishness, and
meditate as he did, and you will prove that all is mercy, and proclaim
it! You will find, for instance, that the loss of wealth took away with
it the idol of your worship, the minister of your excessive pleasure;
that altered position broke down your pride; that worldly sorrow led you
to seek heavenly comfort; that the perfidy of so-called friends made you
cease to put your trust in man, and caused you to rely on the friend that
sticketh closer than a brother; that sickness and infirmity reminded you
of death, and stimulated you to preparation for judgment; that the loss
of those you loved, uprooted your clingings to earth, linked you to
heaven, revealed to you One whom you knew not; Whom above all you ought
to love; Who is better to you than sons and daughters; Who is the true
and abiding Father of the fatherless, and GOD of the widow. No matter
what your circumstances, how many your troubles, I tell you on the
authority of God’s Word, that if you love Him, they all work together for
your good; yea, they are all good in themselves. You will find them so,
if you rightly review them, and each of you will be able to say, as
truthfully as Jacob did, with much more meaning, because of your better
knowledge and superior blessedness in CHRIST, “I am not worthy of the
least of all the mercies and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed
unto my servant . . . I am become two bands.”
Try to feel this, brethren, and to express it this night to GOD; to tell
out your praises for the mercies of your past life, and, in the review of
them, to pledge yourselves to Him, that you will strive henceforth to
recognise blessings more quickly, to use them better, to be more grateful
for them. Be these the thoughts and vows with which you consecrate the
last hours of a dying year. But, knowing that so soon as you set out
again, your enemy, whom sin has given the advantage over you, will come
to meet you, to smite you, to turn you back from the Holy Land, forget
not this night to cry, “Deliver me, I pray Thee, O LORD. Take away from
me the sin which exposes me to assaults, which makes me vulnerable. Give
me Thy strength: go before me with thy blessing.” Do this, brethren,
persevere in it day after day, night after night: wrestle with God,
refuse to let Him go—you shall surely prevail: GOD will yield all you
ask; and, in honour of your victory, He will change your name from Jacob
to Israel, that is, you shall no longer be remembered by the name of your
deceit and your sin. You shall be known, known to angels, known to Him,
as princes, and prevailers with GOD.
SERMON VIII.
WORKING FOR GOD.