The Faith of Jacob and Joseph Revealed by the Word [1] [New Year’s Eve Service]

When Jacob met Pharaoh in Egypt and was asked his age, he answered that the years of his pilgrimage were a hundred and thirty, and that they had been hard years. After he obtained his brother’s birthright for a bowl of red stew, he was forced to flee from him and spent twenty years in the house of his uncle Laban, deceived the whole time. In the land of Shechem, his daughter came to harm and his sons went as far as murder.

The hard years Jacob went through were not a matter of bad luck. They came because, at every turn, he judged and decided by his own thinking rather than by the word of God. Deceiving his brother was one such decision. So was settling in Shechem, which seemed safe, when God had told him to go up to Bethel. Yet God made use even of Laban’s greed, and through Jacob he went on forming the people of Israel.

Left to himself, Jacob would have died at his brother’s hands or been exploited by Laban all his life. What kept him alive was not his own wisdom but God, who stepped in at every moment. God’s people should not go looking to the world again once their prayers have been answered. The way they must live is to entrust their judgment and decisions to God, and all the more when life is at peace.