Faith’s Way Brings Peace 

Genesis 31 

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

One thing that came home to me in regard to prayer was the number of times that I’ve taken God’s clear command like, “Ask and it will be given you, seek and you shall find,” [Matthew 7:7] and I have found all kinds of rationalizations, and excuses, and intellectual doubts for not believing that.  Until I’ve begun to have difficulty in the past with that verse or with other ones that are so clear, “If you ask anything in my name I will do it.” [John 14:13] I’ve tried to qualify that in all kinds of ways.

And you know why?  Because, I’ve looked at the people who haven’t been healed, or the people who haven’t got answers to their prayers and I’ve allowed that over the years to make me question God’s simple promise.  Loved ones, it’s just not even intellectual doing that, it’s just wrong.  Our place is to believe God.  When we come to the end of our lives, we’ll meet God face-to-face.  We won’t meet these people who haven’t been healed for whatever reason we don’t know, or the people that have said their prayers weren’t answered.  We won’t meet them, we’ll answer God and he’ll look straight in our eyes and say, “I said to you ask and it will be given you.  I told you whatever you desire in prayer believe that you have received it and you shall have it.  Now, why didn’t you do that?” 

It’s just come home clearer and clearer to me that we have no leg to stand on for not believing totally and fully God’s promises that he’ll answer our prayers.  Of course, old Jacob was like us, just a manipulator, listened to God a little, manipulated a lot.  Managed what he could himself because he thought it was surer than if he asked God about things.  And you remember how he passed in his time, 14 years in futility really serving this old chancellor, his uncle Laban, for one daughter and he got the wrong daughter, and then he served him another seven years and he got the daughter he had hoped.  So there he was with two wives after 14 years of service and he had no possessions at all.  You remember, God explained to him how he was going to provide him with riches and it was through prayer.

If you look at it, just glance at it, we’ll pass over it quickly to the rest of the message that I think the Father has for us.  It’s Genesis 31 and Jacob describes how it actually occurred that he ended up with more sheep and cattle than even his uncle Laban.  He said in Genesis 31:11, “Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am!’  And he said, ‘Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that leap upon the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled.’”  Now the amazing thing about that was Laban had taken out all the striped, spotted, and mottled ones and had left Jacob with only the solid colors to look after and yet the angel came to Jacob and said, “Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that leap upon the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.” 

You understand now, don’t you?  That’s exactly the principle that Jesus outlined to us in Luke 11:24.  Luke 11:24, and I almost felt Dan Fowler looking at me thinking it was Mark 11:24.  You can see what a good Bible study this is going to be.  And it’s the promise – this is good anyways it forces all of you to know it.  Mark 11:24, and it’s exactly that principle you see, Mark 11:24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” 

Now I don’t know if you all have really got hold of that principle but I’m beginning to get it in my thick head, that hope is not faith.  And repeatedly I have prayed and I have hoped that God would answer my prayer but I have not done that for years.  Now, I’ve started now but for years I have not done that.   Whatever you ask in prayer believe that you have received it and it will be yours.  I’ll tell you why I didn’t.  I’m an intellectual skeptic and I thought, “This is bluff.  It’s a bluff version of the power of positive thinking, it’s trickery, it’s just trying to make something happen by the power of my thought.”  It is if God has not given the promise.  It is if there’s no such thing as prayer.  It is if all we can do is think positively.  If that’s all we got going then we’re just tricking ourselves. 

But this is prayer, loved ones.  We’re asking our God to do something and then he’s saying, “You really want this?  Then it’s already done as far as I’m concerned because I said, ‘Ask and it will be given you.’  So see it as done.  Begin to arrange all your thoughts and feelings in accordance with it being done.”  Well, of course, it changes everything.  It changes everything.  Whether it’s praying for a mate, praying that God will give you the right husband or the right wife, or whether it’s praying that God will answer all your financial problems, it means immediately regarding the person as already given to you and relaxing back from any further worry about matrimonial matters.

It means seeing that money as already provided and at that moment all the worry and the strain about your bank account draining out of your face and out of your body.  That’s what it means to see that the goats that leap upon the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled.  In fact, old Cho says, “You look at the striped, spotted, mottled tree on Calvary and you see that there God has done everything for you already and you see it all through that striped, spotted, mottled tree.”  Loved ones, that’s what faith is in prayer and that’s what God expects us to do.  He expects us to walk in the certainty that our prayer has been answered the moment we have offered it up. 

Of course if you say, “Well then do you no longer prayer it?”  That’s right you no longer ask him for it, you simply thank him that he has done it.  You can thank him daily, “Lord, I thank you that you’ve done this.  I thank you that I can see these striped, spotted, and mottled sheep and goats before me.  I can see my whole pasture full of them.  I can see myself driving towards Esau my brother with all these thousands of mottled sheep and goats before me.”  That’s it.  That’s what it means. It means see it.  It means believe it.  It means declare to God and the angels in heaven, “I believe what God has told me.  I do not believe what I see; I believe what God has told me.”

Oh, it’s the way, loved ones.  It’s the way of the Smith Wigglesworth, where he said, “I am moved not by what I see, not by what I feel, but I am moved by what I believe.”  Loved ones, your life can change this night.  It can.  Every dear heart here that wants to be freed from something, you can see yourself freed in Jesus at this very moment.  You can see yourself free, and whole, and clean from that habit and continue to fix your eyes upon yourself whole and complete in Christ.  Why?  Because that’s it.  That’s reality.  You are freed.  God has already made all things new in your life.  The old has passed away.

Oh loved ones, I encourage you and I feel the chains around your ankles because I know them so well myself.  I knew the fetters around my ankles.  But rise up and break the fetters from your ankles and your wrists.  Break away from this half faith, this hope that we’re calling faith.  Oh, break away from it and begin to believe that that is so.  Begin to live in the happiness that all things are already done.  Faith is the substance of things unseen. [Hebrews 11:1] That means you enjoy the actual substance of it even before you get it.  You enjoy the substance of the love and peace of a dear husband or wife even before you’ve got them.  You enjoy the substance of the money in the bank even before the money is there. 

That’s what it is.  Faith is the substance -- it’s the very essence of the thing.  It’s as if, if we could see it, if we were in heaven and could see it.  Jesus has arranged little things like – I haven’t a dollar here, but little coins and dollars.  He’s arranged little things.  I have something less; I have a couple of nickels.  He’s arranged things like nickels and dimes and he’s said, “These are the things, these are the things through which in this place of time and passing history I show you my kindness.  But actually, I don’t need that.  I don’t need that.  I’ve just arranged that for the people that don’t know me.  Money and here’s a husband.  I’ve arranged this.  This is another little thing I’ve arranged in this place of time here so that you’ll experience my love.  But actually, I’m behind this dollar, I’m behind it.  Hi, I’m behind the dollar and I don’t need the dollar.  I can come right through here and give you what I used to give you through that dollar.  I can give it directly myself.  I can give you what I used to give you through that husband directly myself.  You can have it all.  Now have it, enjoy it, this minute.  You have the substance of it and then I will give you what is needed in this tawdry little world to pass for this stuff.”

That’s it.  The Father gives it directly to us the moment we ask and then you begin to live in the great confidence and peace of faith in a dear loving Father who will provide all.  So it is a miracle, loved ones. This is what Jacob entered into in that Verse 12, “And he [the Angel] said, “Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that leap upon the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.”  You may want to ask, “Yeah, well, I mean, he looked pretty dumb there driving a whole lot of dreams of striped, spotted, and mottled sheep and goats in front of him.”  Oh no, it became reality, look at Verse 1 there, “Now Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, ‘Jacob has taken all that was our father’s; and from what was our father’s he has gained all this wealth.’”  So it had all turned into reality you see.

Then Verse 13, you remember, we studied last day, “I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me.  Now arise, go forth from this land, and return to the land of your birth.”  So God gave Jacob a clear direction, “Alright, I’ve provided you with wives and I’ve provided you with possessions.  Now rise, go to the land of your birth.”  “Then Rachel and Leah answered him,” and in a way dear Rachel and Leah were the sufferers of Jacob’s own manipulation.  They still had a lot of Jacob, their husband, they bowed down to their husband, and they had a lot of his manipulation and expedience in them.  “Is there any portion or inheritance left to us in our father’s house?  Are we not regarded by him as foreigners?  For he has sold us, and he has been using up the money given for us.”  And it’s all worry, worry wart.  That’s what it is.

We haven’t got what we ought to have and what are we going to do?  “All the property which God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children; now then, whatever God has said to you, do.”  So they reinforced the angel’s command but reinforced it from fear.  As you see that later is what got Jacob into trouble too.  “So Jacob arose, and set his sons and his wives on camels; and he drove away all his cattle, all his livestock which he had gained, the cattle in his possession which he had acquired in Paddan-aram, to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac.  Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father’s household gods.”

So the old fear began to come out.  Rachel grabbed the household gods.  And Jacob really he got involved in the same thing.  Verse 20, “And Jacob outwitted Laban the Aramean.”  So he fell back into his own manipulation, “In that he did not tell him that he intended to flee.”  See, that’s important, when you take a position of faith you need to act in absolute confidence of that faith the whole way down the line.  So it’s like John Wayne who walks down the village street and doesn’t look to the right or the left even though he knows the guns are drilling him in the back any minute.  It’s that, it’s that kind of confidence and faith that is needed once God gives you a promise.  You’ve to ask him and believe him, and then you’ve to walk in absolute confidence that that is yours. 

That means, in regard to a husband or a wife, no more fishing, no more playing games, no more trying to get this girl to go or that guy to go.  It’s with money no longer trying to help God out, “Well, I know, Lord, you’ve answered me this but I’d like to help you out.  I’d like to outwit this in some way.”  Don’t.  Don’t.  Stand back from that.  Don’t do that.  That’s, you see, the very confession that your faith is not faith.  No, don’t.  Rest in God.  Be absolute confident.  Don’t get scared.  Even when your wives come and say, “Oh well, that’s right we ought to have all this.”  That’s not why you have it, you have it because you asked God for it and that’s who has given it to you.  You don’t need to flee -- you don’t need to outwit Laban, your uncle.  It is God that has told you to go, go in confidence. 

That applies to every part of our lives, loved ones.  Never tremble, never hesitate in faith.  Keep on walking dead straight, “My God has answered my prayer.”  But of course Jacob in Verse 20, “Outwitted Laban the Aramean, in that he did not tell him that he intended to flee.”  He should have told him.  He should have told Laban, “Now look, I’ve earned my keep,” as he did later on in the story.  “I’ve earned my keep and I have a right to go and my God has told me to go.”  But he didn’t, he slipped around. 

Never do that, loved ones.  Never slip around the thing, always be open and straight.  “He fled with all that he had, and arose and crossed the Euphrates, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.”  God’s children don’t need to flee.  God’s children don’t need to run.  God’s children don’t need to manipulate.  God’s children need to believe him and go in confidence and that’s the same with us. 

Probably, you don’t even need to save too much.  When you ask God about your money and then someone else comes and asks you for the dollar that you have, which I should give you back $5, then you should give because you’ve asked your God, you’ve asked your God to give you and you should give confidently.  You know what I am saying, you’re tight with money and you ask God to solve the thing for you and then somebody else asks you for something.  You think to yourself, “Well, God has promised he’d answer me.”  But Satan says, “Yeah, but he didn’t promise you he’d give you more as well to give away.”  Well of course he will.

God will give you everything that is needed to be generous hearted and loving towards him so don’t give the game away after winning it.  See, that’s what we do.  Why are we not healed, why do we not receive answers?  Because, at some point we waiver as a wave of the sea.  We wavier instead of holding steady.  Hold steady.  “Euphrates, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.”  Then Verse 22, of course what that does is it gives ground to Satan.  Oh, I’m sorry that’s the fruit of the John Wayne stuff.  As long as old John walks down there and doesn’t bat an eyelid of course the bad man can’t shoot him, they see his confidence.  It’s the same. 

If you’ve confidence before a roaring lion, the lion knows that you have courage and confidence.  It is the same with the roaring lion that is Satan, as long as you hold steady and you totally believe that God alone is doing this without my help and doesn’t need my aid, Satan is held at bay.  When you tremble, or when you try and help and show that you don’t really totally trust God for the thing, but you think you need to help him out, you give ground to Satan.  And Satan then is able to make advances through other people that actually he wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. 

And so you get that in Verse 22, “When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled, he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him for seven days and followed close after him into the hill country of Gilead.  But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night,” -- even then God was watching over Jacob, “And said to him, ‘Take heed that you say not a word to Jacob, either good or bad.’”  The Hebrew means actually either from good to bad, so don’t say a word that will change what I have done to prosper him.  Change it from good to bad.  You have no power to do that.  But it was a bit like with Job, he did nevertheless let Laban take advantage of the ground that Jacob had yielded to Satan.

And so in Verse 25, “And Laban overtook Jacob.  Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen encamped in the hill country of Gilead.  And Laban said to Jacob,” and one must admit there’s a fair bit of hypocrisy here.  Laban wasn’t exactly the kind generous uncle or father that he pretends he is.   “And Laban said to Jacob, ‘What have you done, that you have cheated me?’”  Well Laban, you cheated him right, left, and center, buddy.  Old Laban says, “What have you done, that you have cheated me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword?”  Well, he served 14 years for them.  “Why did you flee secretly, and cheat me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs, with tambourine and lyre?”  Well, one doubts if he would just have done that but you can see the situation you get yourself into if you only half trust God.

You find that old chancellors and hypocrites you know end up kind of chastising you.  So don’t do it.  Stand out firm, and plain, and alone in faith in God and Satan cannot touch you and bring these indignities to you.  Verse 28, “And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell?  Now you have done foolishly.”  And that is true, there he spoke truth.  “Now you have done foolishly.  It is in my power to do you harm.”  That’s what happens.  If you walk half in faith and half in your own ability you yield ground to Satan and you put yourself in the power of Satan to do you harm, and you put yourself in the power of other people.  It’s a whole spiritual battle.  It’s a whole spiritual battle.  It is really.

That’s where you get in trouble. Could I go back to the whole husband and wife thing, for those of us who aren’t married and looking for a husband or wife?  Or for those of us who are praying for money, that’s where we get ourselves into trouble?  We pray and ask God, we take a stand and believe, and we begin to set our eyes on the things.  But then some little circumstances come and we think, “Well, we better help God out in this,” and by doing that we weaken our faith and we begin to put faith on ourselves and we yield ground to Satan and then he begins to move in upon us and that’s where we get into trouble. 

That’s why men like Wigglesworth and Hagin said that people get healed in healing services but they go home and the next day they don’t exercise the faith and they lose their healing.  That’s it.  That’s the truth of it.  Satan gets in to us and says, “Oh, they were never healed.”  Of course they were healed.  If a man could stand up when he could no longer stand up, he’s healed.  If he could hear and he wasn’t able to hear before he’s healed.  But, you yield ground so easily, loved ones, if you move a hairs breadth of complete confidence and faith that God has done it.  That’s why you need to fill your mind all the time with the fact that God has answered your prayer.  You need to see the answer to your prayer there.  You need to see the money there. 

It’s not to trick it.  The old psychic power won’t bring it about.  It’s not that.  It’s not that old game I see a purple Cadillac on my front doorstep and every day I fix my mind on it and sooner or later it materializes.  It’s not that.  It’s not that old trick.  But, it is building up your faith in what God has said by continuing to inform your mind and your emotions by that.  Your mind and emotions are really usually informed by what comes through your eyes and through your ears. You have to inform them by what comes through your eyes of faith and your ears of faith.  That’s why you have to dwell upon it because that alone protects you from Satan’s desire to get you to move a hair’s breadth off and begin to put your trust in your own abilities. 

So, you can see that really Laban was speaking truth, “It is in my power to do you harm,” except for one thing, “But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Take heed that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad.’”  So God, in his goodness, protected Jacob from Satan’s attack.  But the power was given away and that’s what you and I do, we give ground to Satan.  “And now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house, but why did you steal my gods?’  Jacob answered Laban, ‘Because I was afraid.’”  Now, Jacob didn’t actually – wasn’t answering that question why did you steal my gods.  You’ll see that in a moment.  He was answering the question, why have you gone away?  Because you long greatly for your father’s house?  “Because I was afraid, for I thought you would take your daughters from me by force.”  Jacob is explaining why he fled, trying to justify it.

Now, he’s baffled by the stealing of the gods of course.  Verse 32, “Any one with whom you find your gods shall not live.”  Well of course, Jacob obviously didn’t know that Rachel had stolen the gods.  But you can see that Rachel was in a sense part of Jacob and so Rachel’s doing that compromised Jacob too and yielded ground to Satan.  So as soon as you start that manipulating game or you start anything that is less than total integrity before God, you yield ground to Satan, loved ones.  And that is of course why Laban had even the power to catch Jacob and his wives.  “Any one with whom you find your gods shall not live.”  Well, at least Jacob is beginning to climb out of this a bit because he had integrity himself about this.

“In the presence of our kinsmen point out what I have that is yours, and take it.’  Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.  So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two maidservants, but he did not find them.  And he went out of Leah’s tent, and entered Rachel’s.”  We always get ourselves into these undignified positions when we try to manipulate or we try to compromise our integrity. Don’t loved ones, stand and trust God and be defeated rather than stand and trust yourself or trust Satan.  “Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat upon them.  Laban felt all about the tent, but did not find them.  And she said to her father, ‘Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you.’” 

You know, it just breaks your heart because you remember how often you’ve done the same thing yourself.  “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.”  Well, one doesn’t know of course whether it was but one suspects, if she lied about one thing, she lied about the other.  “So he searched, but did not find the household gods.”  And so, you can see how that bit is – here it is an eternal blotch.  It’s amazing -- here it is an eternal stain for now what 4,000 or 6,000 years in the history of man. Here it is a stain on God’s blessing upon Jacob and his wives.  But there it stands as a monument to what we end up doing if we don’t maintain complete integrity before God.

 “Then Jacob became angry, and upbraided Laban; Jacob said to Laban, ‘What is my offense?  What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me?’”  And then Jacob begins to express his own integrity over the 20 or so years and in fairness he’s right.  “Although you have felt through all my goods, what have you found of all your household goods?  Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, that they may decide between us two.  These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your she-goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flocks.  That which was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it myself; of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.  Thus I was; by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.  These twenty years I have been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.  If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Father of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed.  God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

I think that was it, you know.  Jacob with all his manipulation had shown some integrity.  Loved ones, God cannot answer your prayers unless you have integrity in your life.  I don’t know if you know some of the amazing verses in the Bible but there’s one in Psalms 7:8 that will stand for all the rest because there are many more.  It really is an astounding verse.  Especially because we’ve been so taught that it doesn’t matter, you know, what the state of our lives is, it’s just Jesus’ blood that counts.  Well, Psalms 7:8, “The Lord judges the peoples,” then David prayers, “Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.”  That’s it.  Judge me according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. 

Loved ones, if you go before God and ask him for something whether for a dear husband or wife, or for money, and there is not integrity in your life before God, God cannot answer you because you are not able to say with Jesus, “The evil one has nothing in me.”  Only if you’re able to say with Jesus, “The evil one has nothing in me.”  That is, “I’ve confessed all my sins, I’ve repented of them all, I’ve turned from anything that I know is wrong in my life and now Lord I am asking you to answer me according to the integrity of my heart and according to the promises you have given me that whatever I ask in your name will be done.”  If you ask that way, then God is able to answer.

But loved ones, he isn’t if you regard iniquity in your heart.  There are other verses that if you regard iniquity in your heart God is not able to answer you.  I don’t know that I can put my hands immediately on that but I think Isaiah 59:2.  It’s a promise about answered prayer.  Isaiah 59:1 gives you the context, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear.”  That’s not why your prayers are not being answered.  “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear.”  That’s it.

Isaiah 59:2, “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear.  That’s it.  You need to ask in faith and you need to ask with a clean conscience.  Now, if you say to me, “Why?  I mean, you said faith was all that was needed.”  Yes it is.  What iniquity does is it comes underneath you and pulls your feet from under you.  So you’re standing on this chair of faith and you’re saying, “Lord God, answer me according to your promises.”  And your bad conscience is pulling the chair from under you and you’re toppled.  Your faith can’t somehow be exercised.  You’re trying to exercise it and you’re saying, “But Lord, I believe your promise whatsoever you desire in prayer believe that you receive it and you shall have it.  Lord, I believe that.  I believe it Lord, I believe it and yet somehow I can’t believe it.” 

It’s because your conscience, your evil conscience, the iniquity in your heart is dragging your faith’s feet from under you because faith is an absolute confidence in God, in his love for you, and in your love and trust in him.  So, it’s an open heaven and if there’s anything to destroy that open heaven, your faith shakes like that.  Indeed, it’s Satan actually.  Satan is actually coming and saying, “Huh, you’re asking God for that and you know you’re not obeying him and he has promised if you abide in my words and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it will be done for you and you’re not abiding his words.  How do you think you can ask him for that?”  That’s the way it works.

It’s as if they’re interlinked.  I suppose there’s a technical word, isn’t there, a mechanical word, but they’re interlinked with one another.  It’s like the stuff in computers, one thing can’t happen unless you have another thing pressed, another button pressed.  They’re interlinked with one another so that it’s almost a failsafe system.  The faith can only grasp hold of God’s promise if the conscience is clean before the Lord.  So that’s it.  So integrity and faith are one in the same and answered prayer is dependent on faith and part of faith is absolute obedience and integrity before God.  So that’s what Jacob was fighting and that’s why ground was yielded so that Laban was able to overtake him.  And of course, why God was willing to deal with Jacob was the dear fella had for 20 years begun to show some kind of integrity. 

And then in Verse 43, “Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, ‘The daughters are my daughters,’” so old Laban pleading again, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks and all that you see is mine.”  [Well they weren’t he had given them away] “But what can I do this day to these my daughters or to their children whom they have borne?”  I mean, I am generous,  I wouldn’t dream of killing my daughters, I’m such a generous man,  “Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I; and let it be a witness between you and me.’  So Jacob took a stone, and set it up as a pillar.  And Jacob said to his kinsmen, ‘Gather stones’ and they took stones, and made a heap; and they ate there by the heap.  Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed.”  Because he spoke Aramaic and Jacob spoke Hebrew.  “Laban said, ‘This heap is a witness between you and me today.’  Therefore he named it Galeed, and the pillar Mizpah, for he said, ‘The Lord watch between you and me, when we are absent one from the other.’”  [They needed that covenant.] “If you ill-treat my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no man is with us, remember, God is witness between you and me.’  Then Laban said to Jacob, ‘See this heap and the pillar, which I have set between you and me.  This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, for harm.  The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.’  So Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac, and Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and called his kinsmen to eat bread; and they ate bread and tarried all night on the mountain.  Early in the morning Laban arose, and kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them; then he departed and returned home.”

God in his goodness you know, dragged Jacob out of it.  He will do the same with you and me.  He will be as kind and merciful to us but his one aim is to bring us into faith because until we come into faith he cannot bless us.  He cannot prosperous the way he has intended.  So he is kind, you know, and he will drag us, and he will go back and pick us up.  But loved ones, you’re not in the life that God has for you unless you finish with that sin, and that doubt, and that manipulation, and that expedience, and walk out into the clear realm of faith.  So I’d encourage you, get up, have done with lesser things.  Leave aside the old manipulation, leave aside the playing around with little sins and let’s get going. There’s a dear world that needs God’s touch and your lives are meant to be gloriously successful and God has it for us.  Let’s step into faith.  Let’s do it. 

Let us pray.  Dear Father, you have made it so clear to us that we are your dear children and you will not withhold any good thing from us.  And you have made that clear to us in the simplest terms using the simplest words, “Ask and it will be given you.  If you ask anything in my name I will do it. [John 14:14]  If my words abide in you and you abide in my words, ask whatever you will and it will be done for you. [John 15:7] Whatsoever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive it and you will have it.”  Lord, thank you for such clear promises and all you ask us to do is to obey you in everything that you show us and then to have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication to let our request be made known to you.  Then to get up from our prayers with not only a clean conscience but a heart that is free from all worry and fear.  A clear, joyous, exhilarated heart that knows that we have these things already because we know you have heard us and you’ll fulfill your promise. 

Father, we would step out into this way of gladness tonight.  Into this confident life where we know that Susan is whole and well before you -- complete and full of health.  Where we know, Lord, that everything in our life has been rectified and renewed in Jesus.  The old has all passed away in our life.  The new has all come.  We are new today -- new and whole, and well.  Everything is exactly as you want it to be. As we, through your guidance, have desired it to be.  Lord, we thank you.  We intend to walk forth in joy and confidence this night for your glory.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and ever more.