Jacob and Hyde

Every story has a beginning and we can find this story begining in Genesis 25:24 And when the time came to give birth, Rebekah discovered that she did indeed have twins!   And those twins were mentioned in the scripture that was read earlier.  Hebrews 11:20 It was by faith that Isaac promised blessings for the future to his sons, Jacob and Esau.

Now the story didn’t have a really great beginning.  If you think you have problems getting your kids to get along you ain’t’ seen nothing.  This was the family that put the fun in dysfunctional.  Sometimes I will be talking to a parent and they will be describing their kids fighting and say “I don’t understand it, they got along great until . . .” But with Jacob and Esau they were at each other’s throats almost from day one. 

We should start at the beginning because the beginning is usually the best place to begin, and so we read in Genesis 25:24-26 And when the time came to give birth, Rebekah discovered that she did indeed have twins!   The first one was very red at birth and covered with thick hair like a fur coat. So they named him Esau.   Then the other twin was born with his hand grasping Esau’s heel. So they named him Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.  

Kind of a cute thing that Rebekah did, not.  Esau sounds like the Hebrew word of hairy, and Jacob meant heel grabber, which was a colloquial term for someone who couldn’t be trusted, a deceiver, and a manipulator.  The name of her second son became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If we continue to read we discover the two boys had a bad case of sibling rivalry.  And this wasn’t something new, listen to the description of Rebekah’s pregnancy.  Genesis 25:22-23 But the two children struggled with each other in her womb. So she went to ask the Lord about it. “Why is this happening to me?” she asked. And the Lord told her, “The sons in your womb will become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son.”

Now in hindsight we see how the prophecy came to be fulfilled, how Jacob would go on to become one of the religious leaders that the Jews would look back to as a man of God.  He would be included in both of the genealogies of Christ, would be spoken of in Hebrews chapter 11 as a champion of the faith, and would receive over 360 mentions in the Old and New Testament alike. 

But it wasn’t always like that, sometimes we look at these folks in Hebrews 11 and figure that they had it all under control.  The reality is that Jacob’s early life was a little bit like this  (Use clip from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)   

You’ve probably clued in by now right?  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 and became the basis of numerous movies.  Including the clip I just showed that was from 1932 .  The very names of Jekyll & Hyde have come to represent a duality of nature.  The good and evil side that lurks inside each person.  This was an idea that Stevenson had toyed with for a while; what would happen if you could separate the evil from the good, or for that matter the good from the evil.  The horrifying conclusion that Stevenson came to is that when you are operating in your own strength that evil can overcome the good if given a chance.  When Mr. Hyde was turned loose he took over Dr. Jekyll’s complete being.

Stevenson’s novel is a classic, it’s still being read a hundred and twenty five years after it was written and even people who haven’t read the book or seen the movie know the story line, and the term Jekyll & Hyde has crept into common usage in the English language.  But even though it is a classic story it isn’t all that original. 

The dual nature of man has been a reality since the beginning of time, when we first meet Adam and Eve’s son Cain he is worshipping God and then just 5 verses later he murders his brother.   The Bible is full of Jekyll & Hyde behavior.  Men and women who struggle with the desire to do what is right while trying to rein in the compulsion to do what is wrong. 

 Probably every person who has chosen to follow Christ has felt that struggle at some time.  But one of the best scriptural examples of this Jekyll & Hyde behavior would be Jacob.  Son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham, twin brother of Esau.  The very same Jacob who is listed in Hebrews 11 as a hero of the faith. 

But that was Jekyll part of Jacob that made the Hebrews list.  His early years, not so much.  It was during those years that Jacob spent struggling with the Hyde part of his personality.  And perhaps the helpful part of Jacob making the list is the hope that it offers for each one of us. 

Listen to his story, Genesis 25:27-28 As the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter. He was an outdoorsman, but Jacob had a quiet temperament, preferring to stay at home. Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating the wild game Esau brought home, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

A little more rivalry is being set up, Esau the man’s man, this was a guy that Tim Taylor would love, an outdoors man a hunter, big, hairy and he was his father’s favorite.  Then there was Jacob.  Jacob was the homebody, tended the sheep, and was a bit of a cook and Mom really did like him the best.  When we look at the differences in the boys plus the very blatant favoritism shown to each by their parents then we can see how things are starting to be set up.  The story is told over the next twelve chapters.

So let’s start by meeting  Jacob the Schemer  Remember what the name Jacob meant?  Heel Grabber.  Well, we see Jacob come into his own as the heel grabber at the end Chapter twenty five.  Esau comes home from the woods, looked like a bear, probably smelled like a bear and was as hungry as a bear and Jacob has a pot of stew on the fire.  Esau comes in takes one whiff and says “I’m starved! Give me some of that red stew!”  Now that’s a pleasant attitude isn’t it?  Aren’t you glad your kids don’t talk to each that way?  And so Jacob says “No problem, big fellow, but trade me your birthright for it.”  Do you remember when I spoke about the story of the prodigal son, and how the first born son would get 2/3 of the family’s estate?  That’s what Jacob was asking for and Isaac had a pretty decent size estate.  Now this may not have been very moral, but under Jewish law it was legal. And Esau said  “Look, I’m dying of starvation!  What good is my birthright to me now?” Now Esau may have been hungry but he wasn’t going die, but he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and so he agreed.  Starting to get a picture of Jacob’s nature?

Jacob schemed to get Esau’s inheritance. 

Next we meet Jacob the Liar 

The next incident happens in Chapter 27.  Isaac has become old and blind and wants to do the right thing by his eldest son before he dies by bestowing a blessing on him.  That was the thing to do, and it was very important for Esau to have that blessing, after all he had given up his birthright.  And so Isaac calls Esau to him and tells him to go hunting and bring him a meal of wild game so that he might bestow a blessing upon him.  But unbeknownst to Isaac and Esau Rebekah has overheard the conversation, and as you might remember Jacob was her favorite.

So the fix was in, Rebekah gives Jacob the scoop and they plot to steal Esau’s blessing.  Those are the right words too.  Jacob bought Esau’s birthright, remember what I said, it may have been immoral but it wasn’t illegal, but now he was stealing Esau’s blessing. 

It’s tough for us to grasp this entire concept of blessings, but it was a common occurrence in that day and age.  And the blessing was different then the birthright.  The birthright had to do with family inheritance, the family’s prosperity.  The blessing from the father had more to do with personal success, or personal prosperity.  And even though in our culture we would presume that everything from birthright to blessing should be split evenly between all the children that wasn’t the culture that this story took place in.

Rebekah went and got some of Esau’s clothing for Jacob to wear and then she covered his neck and hands with goatskins so that Isaac would think that it was really Esau that he was blessing.  They weren't kidding when they said the guy was hairy.  Well, with Jacob’s disguise and Isaac’s blindness they got away with it and a blessing was passed on to the younger son. 

But the reality is that Jacob stole what rightfully belonged to his brother.  He lied to his father three times.  The first was when he dressed up like Esau to deceive his father, the second was when Isaac asked who it was and Jacob claimed to be his brother, and thirdly when his father got suspicious because of his voice and asked him point blank “are you really Esau?” and Jacob answered “Yes Father I am”

Now Esau may have been a little slow but he wasn’t completely daft and so when he gets back and says “Hey dad I’m back and ready to be blessed” and then we read Genesis 27:33 Isaac began to tremble uncontrollably and said, “Then who just served me wild game? I have already eaten it, and I blessed him just before you came. And yes, that blessing must stand!”

I’m not necessarily saying that Esau took it bad but listen to his words in Genesis 27:41 From that time on, Esau hated Jacob because their father had given Jacob the blessing. And Esau began to scheme: “I will soon be mourning my father’s death. Then I will kill my brother, Jacob.”

Remember Jacob wasn’t the slow one and so he left, it was his mother’s idea, and she told him to stay with his uncle for a little while until Esau forgot what had happened to him.  I wonder how long would it take for you to forget that your little brother tricked you out of your birthright and then stole your blessing?  It was twenty years before Jacob would see Esau again.

Next we are introduced to Jacob the Dealer   You don’t have to read very far in the story to discover that Jacob was a deal maker.  Time and time again throughout his life you would see him playing the odds, making deals, trying to come out on top.  If God crossed Jacob’s  mind it was to try and make a deal with him.  Even when God appeared to Jacob in a dream and told him how he would bless him, and how he would bless his descendants.  Listen to what Jacob’s reply was in Genesis 28:20-22 Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my God. And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and I will present to God a tenth of everything he gives me.”    Did you catch the deal maker at work here?  “God if you do this, and if you do that, and if you do something else then you will be my God.”

And I’m sure that God wanted to say “Hey Jacob even if I don’t do that I will still be your God.”  You see God being God is dependent on who He is not on what He does.  And as we read the account of the next twenty years that Jacob would spend God is neither named or mentioned, it’s like Jacob has pushed God out of his life and forgotten the promises that were made.  And if you’re familiar with the deal maker then you know that he got back some of his own during that time. 

Maybe you don’t know the story.  Jacob lands at Paddan Aram to live with his Uncle and discovers that Uncle Laban has two daughters.  The youngest was a knockout, the Bible says that she was beautiful and had a good figure.  The older sister, well depending on the version of the Bible you’re reading from the best she could do was that she had pretty eyes. 

Jacob being a man fell in love with the youngest, Rachel, and struck a deal with her father to work for seven years in exchange for being able to marry her.  This by the way was his first cousin, talk about your family tree being a wreath, being from a small island the question that often comes up in my family is: if you get a divorce are you still cousins?

Back to the story, Jacob  works seven years, the wedding takes place there’s a big wedding feast the happy couple retires to the honeymoon tent and in the morning Jacob wakes up with. . .  Leah, Rachel's older sister, you know the one with the nice eyes. 

The dealer had been dealt.  I know the question that begs to be asked is “How could he have spent his wedding night with the wrong sister”  I don’t know, maybe he was tired, maybe the tent was dark, maybe he’d had a little too much of the wedding wine.”  Let’s not go down that road, let it be suffice to say he was not a happy camper in the morning.

So he confronts Uncle Laban who says “Oh didn’t I mention, in our culture the older sister has to be married first, sorry, but if you’re willing to work another seven years you can marry Rachel as well.”  Jacob continued to work for Laban for another thirteen years during which time his Uncle changed the terms of his employment contract ten times always trying to get the better of Jacob.  Finally Jacob gets tired of being on the short end of the stick and gets back in communication with God who sends him back home to make peace with his brother.  You still with me here?

And so finally we have Jacob the Surrendered

It is during the trip home that we read the story of an encounter that would change Jacob’s life.  It’s found in Genesis 32:22-33.  Jacob meets with a man in the middle of the night and for whatever reason they begin to wrestle if I met a man in the middle of the night my first response wouldn’t be “Hey you want to wrestle?”  but what can I say, Jacob married two of his first cousins.  So they begin to wrestle and they wrestle all night long until daybreak, when it would appear that Jacob is getting the upper hand the man touches Jacob’s hip with one finger and throws it out of place. 

Now there are a lot of questions that can be asked about this portion of scripture, like who was Jacob actually wrestling with?  Was it God?  An Angel or just another man.  And if it was a supernatural being why was Jacob able to get the upper hand at times?  Jacob says he saw the face of God but did he mean that figuratively or literally?  Whoever it was that wrestled with Jacob said Genesis 32:28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.”

Did he mean that Jacob had been wrestling with God right at that moment or that he’d been wrestling with God during that past twenty years?  Inquiring minds want to know.  But we probably never know this side of heaven.  What we do know is that Jacob only seemed to be winning because whoever or whatever it was that Jacob was struggling with showed his superiority by touching his side and dislocating his hip.  All it took was the touch of a finger, and if there was that much strength in a finger what else could he have done?   

All we really know is that this was a turning point for Jacob.  It was here that he chose to live as Jekyll and not Hyde, to serve God and not demand that God serve him.  Up to this point the only time Jacob ever talked to God was when he was in trouble and he wanted something.  It’s amazing how a little trouble can send us scurrying to God.  Without wanting to sound callous I would imagine that ten years ago on September 11 that God heard a lot of unfamiliar voices.  And I would imagine that right here in this group there are people who only talk to God when they have problems, the kid’s sick, they might lose their job, and their teens are rebellious.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?  We’ve all tried to make deals with God at one time or another, “God if you do this then I’ll go to church every Sunday, God if you do that then I promise I’ll give ten percent of everything I make to you, God if you do something else I promise that I’ll serve you faithfully.”  Uh-huh. 

The month before I accepted Christ as the manager of my life I was fishing on a herring seiner on the Gaspe coast of Quebec.  My best friend had been trying his hardest to convince me to become a Christ Follower that summer and I wasn’t sure what I wanted. 

Well actually I did know what I wanted; I wanted to make lots of money so I could drive fast cars.  Now what I did when we were fishing was to trip the tow boat.  In herring seining you have a net that’s like a ¼ of a mile long and tied to each end of the net was a boat.  On one end was the fishing boat in this case the Ralli 2, on the other end was a tow boat which was like a little floating bulldozer.  When we would get in the area of fish we’d put two guys in the tow boat and there they’d wait.  And then there was one guy who stood next to the control to release the tow boat and that was me, see I was the engineer so I was the only person allowed to pull levers. 

When you’d get over a school of fish the skipper would yell “Let her go”  and I’d pull the lever that would start the tow boat sliding down a ramp on the stern of the seiner and it would pull the seine with it.  Now I’ve said all of that to say that I would stand out there all alone many nights just me and God.  And I’d try and make deals with Him.  “You know God if you’ll let us have a really good season so I can buy the little Mazda RX7 I want then I will become a Christian.”  

But you know what?  God isn’t interested in deals, he’s interested in obedience and there isn’t anything that you can do that will earn you God’s favor.  God didn’t have to bless Jacob, but he did.  And God doesn’t have to forgive you but he will.

And there are times that we struggle with God over that issue of obedience and there are even times that it seems like maybe we are getting the upper hand, but we’re not.  In Stephenson’s novel, the only way that Jekyll could destroy Hyde was to kill him, and in doing so he had to kill himself.

Something very similar had to happen to Jacob, he didn’t have to kill himself, instead he had to put to death his desire to always come out on top.

In the New Testament Paul talks about putting different things to death Colossians 3:5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.

And in Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

And again in  Romans 6:6-7 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

I don’t know what you're struggling with, maybe nothing, maybe you and God have everything under control, and if that’s the case super.  But if you are struggling to keep Hyde in his place it’s not going to work.  You can’t do it by yourself, it’s only when you give it over to God and quit trying to do it in your own power that you will win and win you will.  Listen to the promise made to you  1 John 5:4 For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.

Do you have that victory?  Do you want that victory?

Standing Face to Faith

Every story has a beginning.  And this one is found in Genesis 6:9 This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God. 

Did you catch that?  A righteous man.  The only blameless person living on the earth at the time.  He walked in close fellowship with God.

You know his story, you learned all about it in Sunday School.  But really you know Noah for the boat he built, but have you ever thought of all that went into building that boat?  Seriously, the man built a large, a very large boat in the middle of a country that had no major body of water and had never seen rain?
It had to be an act of either insanity or faith.  And we don’t have to guess because the Bible tells us that it was an act of faith, in the scripture that was read this morning we heard  Hebrews 11:7 It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.

God had decided to destroy the world because of its unrighteousness and the evil that had become so rampant and there was Noah standing face to faith. 

Did you ever have a teacher in high school or college that graded on the curve?  You know the theory that if a test was a good test and the teacher was a good teacher then the grades should fall along a bell curve. You’d have so many As and Fs, a few more Bs and Ds and the majority would fall in the C range.  C being average and by it’s very definition most people are average, that’s what average is.  And so a curve would end up looking something like this.  However, if the test wasn’t a good test or the material wasn’t taught well enough the entire curve would move down and when that happened a professor who was committed to the entire curve thing would grade accordingly, and move the marks up. Is that somewhat clear?

The problem was when the curve was here, and one or two students still scored high, thus indicating that the problem wasn’t with the test or the teacher but with the students. And the prof wouldn’t move the marks.  We referred to those people in the nicest possible way as curve blowers.

Noah was a curve blower. Had there not been a Noah then God could conclude that either he hadn’t taught the course properly or that the test was too hard. But if we go back to the book of Genesis we read in Genesis 6:9 This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God.

Because Noah was righteous, because Noah was obedient, because Noah enjoyed a close relationship with God that was the evidence that it could be done, if people had a wanted to.

I wonder if any of us would have joined Noah in making it into the faith hall of fame, after all the people who are mentioned are simply ordinary people who did extraordinary things through the power of God, they were sure of what they hoped for and certain of what they did not see.”  

One of our favourite Australian singers was a guy by the name of Graeme Connor and on his Tropicalli CD is a song that includes the line, “If we only believe what we can see, then we will only see what we can believe.”  Think about it, “If we only believe what we can see, then we will only see what we can believe.” The secret then of faith is seeing out beyond the horizon of our sight.  Or believing more then we can see.

1) Do We Have Enough Faith To Believe That God Can Do Great Things, Through Us?  Now the first part is easy isn’t it, “Do we have enough faith to believe that God can do great things?”  of course we do, throughout history God has done great things.  He created the heavens and the earth in six days, he parted the red sea, he brought down Jericho, he closed the lion’s mouths for Daniel, He sent His Son to be born of a virgin,  and three days after His Son died on a cross he raised Him from the dead, God has always done great things.  But that isn’t the question, the question was,  “Do we have enough faith to believe that God can do great things, through us?”  Yes, or no?  As strange as it may seem God has used people throughout history to carry out His will, do you believe that He can use you?   I love the Old Testament story of David and Goliath, and one of my favourite parts of this story is when David come out and Goliath gets his first look at the champion of Israel, and he is a little put out, after all he was a giant and all they were going to send to fight him was a boy?  So he taunts David a little bit, lays down how bad he going to hurt him and then David has his opportunity for rebuttal and he says in, 1 Samuel 17:45-46 David replied to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the LORD will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel!

David believed that God could bring down Goliath, but he also believed that God could use him to bring down Goliath.  You see that is the secret, because of the rules that God has laid down for himself he needs to use people to do the things which need getting done.  Oh he could have toppled Goliath without the shepherd boy and his sling shot, but that isn’t the way he works.  When it gets down to the bottom line God uses everyday people he may give them a little supernatural help but he needs people.  And if God is going to use someone why can’t that someone be you? 

Just from the human side, wouldn’t it be great if you allowed yourself to be used of God and in three or four thousand years people still talked about how Mike killed the Giant or how Angela brought down the walls of a great city and how Matt built an ark.  What can you believe God for today, What could he do through you and with you, look around at this world and ask yourself, “What would I change if I could?”  And then ask yourself “If I had the greatest power in the universe at my disposal could I do it?”

Perhaps you’ve heard Bobby Kennedy quoted as saying “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”,  Well actually he didn’t say it, his brother Ted said at his funeral “Some saw things the way they were and asked ‘why?”   Bobby saw things the way they could be and asked ‘why not?’“ But Ted was actually quoting George Bernard Shaw who said “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”   When was the last time you saw things the way they could be and asked why not.  When was the last time you looked at an unbelieving loved one and said “They could be a Christian, why not”  When was the last time you looked at injustices in the world and thought, “We could find a solution, why not?”  Instead of grumbling about the way things are in our community, our province and our country have you envisioned it the way it could be and said why not? 

You say “but preacher I’m just one person, I’m powerless,”  ahah, if you think that you have bought into a lie of the Devil, You have the power, do you remember the promise of Christ in Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

You will receive power, think about it You, not just others but You, will not might, not may but will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, that would lead me to believe that if you don’t have power in your life then you don’t have the Holy Spirit in your life. Philippians 4:13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. 

Who gives you strength?  You might not be able to do it by yourself,  but then again nobody asked you to do it by yourself.  You have the power of almighty God at your disposal and we know what kind of things he is capable of, don’t we?  Have you come face to faith with the fact that God can do great things through you?

                                                                             

2) Do You Have Enough Faith To Believe In The Goodness Of God, No Matter What?  Once again the first part of the statement is fairly easy to answer.  Do you believe in the goodness of God.  Of course you do, the Bible says time and time again “The Lord is good”, and most of us have experienced his goodness.  It doesn’t take much faith to believe in the goodness of God when the sun is shining, we have a job, we have healthy children and the world is at peace.  But what about when the sun isn’t shining, we are unemployed, have sick children and the world is at war?  I heard a story once about a lady trying to comfort a friend whose child had leukemia, “Maybe God will be good and he will heal your son” said the first lady to which her friend replied, “God will be good whether He heals my son or not.”  Do you have faith enough to believe in the goodness of God, no matter what?

We live in an imperfect world.  A world where much of the suffering and pain comes from man and it’s neither fair nor correct to blame God.  If God fixed all of our problems where would it leave us?  If every time we got into trouble God stepped in and with a little Godly influence bailed us out would we ever learn? 

When I was learning how to fly I had an annoying habit of resting my left foot on the rudder pedal.  It actually didn’t matter a whole lot in the air but on landings it meant that we were landing crooked on the runway, a neat way to remove the landing gear from your airplane.  Time and time again it would happen and every time, just before we touched down my instructor would correct the situation.  Finally Dave must have gotten frustrated because as we came in for our final approach he tucked his feet under the seat and sat on his hands.  “what are you doing” I inquired calmly.”  His reply will always stick with me he said, “As long as you know that I’ll correct your mistake you’ll keep making it.”  God has created us with an incredible capacity to correct our own mistakes, and along with that he has given us the greatest gift in the world and that is the gift of our free will so we can choose to exercise that capacity or not.  Oh by the way I didn’t correct the mistake, we crashed on impact and I was consumed in the flames, no that’s another story.  The truth is that on that day I learnt not to rest my left foot on the rudder.  But only because I knew that I had to learn it.

The Bible says that we were created just a little lower then angels, and I believe that we were created with the ability to solve whatever problems come our way, whether we choose to or not does not change the goodness of God.

Think about all the things that people dump on God.  In 1985 a family that I had grown up with lost their ten year old son Travis.  Trapper had been digging a cave in a mud bank when it collapsed on him and he suffocated.  I took part in the funeral and afterwards I remember standing on the sidewalk outside the funeral home with tears streaming down my face demanding of God why, why did you allow this.  The truth of the matter is that God could save all the Travis Laselles who suffocate and all of the Vaughn Taylors who are killed in car accidents and all of the Welsley Morses who drown but He had already given them the intelligence to know that you shouldn’t dig caves in mud banks, drive too fast or work in your boat alone without a life jacket. Travis, Vaughn and Welsley were friends of mine, and I would love to have them back but it does not make God any less good because they died in accidents.  And if the accidents hadn’t been their fault then they would have been the fault of some other human being not God.

What about diseases like aids and cancer?  I don’t believe that aids is God’s judgement on the homosexual community, if it was then lesbians would be in danger as well as homosexual men and they aren’t.  But the homosexuals are the ones most responsible for the spread of aids, along with promiscuous heterosexuals and intravenous drug users.  God should cop the blame for something which has spread primarily through man’s sinfulness? 

Besides it gets worse because we know how to stop the spread of aids, but mankind lets it’s hormones rule them instead of their brains and so aids has to be the only disease in history that is spread through stupidity.   Give me a break and realise that it will be someone using the intelligence that God has given them to develop a cure for aids.  Most of the problems in the world from cancer to hunger to war to the environment are the product of man’s greed.  If the western world poured as much money into cancer research as they have into their armed forces or for their toys then the big “C” wouldn’t kill our loved ones like it does.  World hunger isn’t a supply problem it’s a greed and distribution problem, how much food is destroyed or not produced in Canada, Australia or the U.S. because there isn’t enough profit.  How much milk has been dumped, how much wheat is stockpiled how many sheep have been shot.  Don’t blame God blame man. 

Have you come face to faith in believing in the goodness of God, no matter what? 

3) Do You Have Enough Faith To Believe In The Wisdom Of God, Even When You Don’t Agree With It?   We know that God is wise,  Especially  when his wisdom is in agreement with ours.  But what about when God appears to be leading in a direction that we don’t consider the wisest course of action.  Do we then have enough faith to follow our heart and not our head? 

Listen to some of the things that people were commended for believing in Hebrews chapter 11:

Hebrews 11:7 It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before.

Hebrews 11:8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. 

Hebrews 11:11 It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old. She believed that God would keep his promise. 

Hebrews 11:17 It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, 

                                                    

Hebrews 11:24-25 It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.   He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. 

Hebrews 11:29 It was by faith that the people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground. But when the Egyptians followed, they were all drowned.

Hebrews 11:30 It was by faith that the people of Israel marched around Jericho seven days, and the walls came crashing down.

There are times as parents that we do things that don’t seem overly wise to our children.  Things like sending them to school or taking them to the dentist, or getting them vaccinated.  They don’t think those things are wise, why not, because they can’t see the big picture, they haven’t matured enough to recognise the validity of those things.  Could it be, just maybe that we can’t always see the big picture? 

You won’t always agree with what God is doing, don’t try to get spiritual and tell me that you do, you don’t and you won’t, because he is God and you is just a people.  In 1990 God directed us to move to Australia.  The church in Bracken Ridge thought that was a great idea, they could see God’s wisdom in bringing them Denn Guptill from Truro Nova Scotia,  But you know there were people in  Wesleyan church in Truro  that weren’t quite as convinced at that point of the wisdom of God.  In 1994 God sent us back to the Maritimes to plant a brand new church in Bedford, and you may think that was a great idea but I can assure you that there are people at North Point Wesleyan Methodist Church in Brisbane who didn’t think it was so hot.

Sometimes God commands you to do things which would appear to go against common sense, but nowhere does God tell us that we have to understand everything God calls us to do, or everything that God does in our life, but he does call us to be obedient.

Have you come face to faith in believing in the wisdom of God, even when you don’t agree with it?

Faith, someone once defined it as Fantastic Adventures In Trusting Him, And you have to agree that many of these people had most excellent adventures even if they didn’t understand it at the beginning.  Do we have enough faith today to believe that God can do great things, through us?    Do we have enough faith today to believe in the goodness of God, no matter what?  Do we have enough faith to believe in the wisdom of God, even when you don’t agree with it?

Faith sounds tough but it’s gotta be done because Paul tell us in Hebrews 11:6 So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.

Are you ready to take the step and live by faith?  Today is the day to stand face to faith.