South Shore Pentecostal Church

Guest (Female): Welcome to the Apostolic Truth radio program with Pastor Craig Ouellette, a radio ministry of South Shore Pentecostal Church located in Whitman, Massachusetts. At a time when many Christians do not know what to believe, South Shore Pentecostal is honored to bring you clear biblical teaching on which you can confidently build your faith. Thank you for joining us.

J. Craig Ouellette: Genesis 25 and 21. We're going to be talking about, "I Have a Promise, I Still Have a Promise." Say, "I still got a promise." Amen. If you're alive, you can have a promise from God. Amen.

God is doing great things. As Brother Mark had read to us in the missionaries, one of the things that he said was they were trying to raise a center for nationals. The missionary trend is to train people within the country and then turn it over to them. That's the idea. We're not trying to stay in a country; we're just trying to raise up people that have the truth, and then they can pass the truth out to other people. That's the real thrust behind missionaries today.

The other thing is, as you heard what Brother Mark was reading about the different baptisms, people getting the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues. We don't always have harvests go seasonally. So when you have souls coming in, that's a harvest spiritually. And when you're supporting missionaries in other places, you're involved in a harvest continually. So if something's not growing here, it's growing someplace else. If you're not reaping here, you're reaping someplace else. So it's important to be involved in supporting the missionaries. Can you say amen?

Look with me at this passage here this morning, Genesis 25, verse 21. We're going to talk about Jacob here this morning. Jacob's got quite a few chapters. We're not going to talk about those. We're going to try to highlight some of the areas of his life. But we're going to talk about, "I still have a promise, I still have a promise." And you may wonder why I used that title, but I did that title because that's exactly what God spoke to me. As I was walking through the house, God said—you know how he just drops something into your spirit? He said, "I still got a promise."

I said, "Okay, that's it. I don't know what else goes with it, but I got the title." Praise God. Amen. So in Genesis, verse 21: "And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her. And she said, 'If it be so, why am I thus?' And she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, 'Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.'"

"And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold there were twins in her womb. The first came out red all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was three score years old when she bare him." So there you are. He's starting a family at 60. No kids before 60. We'd all say, "I give up." Amen.

So he's three score years old. Verse 27: "And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, or a quiet man is what it means, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob sod pottage, or he planted it, and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: and Esau said to Jacob, 'Feed me, I pray thee, with this same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.'"

"And Jacob said, 'Sell me this day thy birthright.' And Esau said, 'Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do for me?' And Jacob said, 'Swear to me this day'; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright." And I want you to say together with me, "I still have a promise."

So when we talk about Jacob, if you're familiar with him, probably most are, but if you're not, he's the third patriarch of the nation of Israel. It's under Jacob where Israel starts to actually become a nation that's visible. Abraham has one son. Isaac and Rebekah have two sons. But under Jacob, the 12 tribes are born or the 12 sons that start the tribes, and the journey into Egypt occurs under Jacob's life. Now, Jacob's life is foreshadowed in his birth. It says after he came out his brother, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel, and his name was called Jacob. Jacob means heel-catcher or supplanter.

So he's a person that's reaching for something from the beginning. He's grasping for something from the beginning. So this act at Jacob's birth illustrated Jacob's character. He was always reaching and grasping. Not that it's wrong to reach or grasp, but some things you don't want to hold on to. Some things you don't want to grab ahold of. Some things if you get ahold of them, they'll damage you. Some things we do need to reach for. Some things we need to expend energy to get those. So the first event we read about concerning Jacob and Esau shows Jacob reaching for the birthright. He wants the birthright.

Now, what the birthright meant was Esau, being the oldest, would receive a double portion of the inheritance. He would also become the political leader and the priest of the family. He would also become the possessor of Abraham's promise passed down to Isaac. So this is what the birthright meant. So in this situation, it meant inheriting God's promise. So Jacob wants this birthright. He's reaching for it. Now, his motives might not have been pure. Maybe he just wanted the double inheritance portion, okay? But he's reaching for something that is good. He's reaching for something that is God-ordained. Amen.

Now, Esau is the man of the moment. He's not concerned with the future promise. So he's willing to sell his birthright to meet an immediate need. He's willing to sell something that, really, it's the only promise in the world by God given to man through Abraham. He's the next in line to have that, but right now Esau is hungry. And he's not looking to the future; he's looking at right now. And because he's focused on "now" or the moment, he's willing to give up the birthright. So we see in Jacob and Esau two types of people and how their decisions affect their lives.

Our decisions affect our lives. All right. Somebody was telling me a story today, Asher was telling me a story, about somebody that did something, and it had far greater ramifications than the person ever believed it was going to have. And the person did it out of a desire for popularity or to have somebody like them, and now it's a mess. And so we need to understand our decisions. We have to learn we can't just act on the moment about something we don't know how this is going to turn out. Amen.

So Esau did not value spiritual things. He's the type of person that's just trying to live life now. And all of us do that to some degree, right? Even being in church, there's days where we do something by the moment rather than talking to God. So later on, when Esau lost the blessing—so he lost the birthright, and later on, when Isaac got older, he said, "Bring in Esau. I'm going to give him the blessing." And he was deceived out of it. Jacob posed as Esau and received the blessing. And the blessing wasn't something you could pull back. Once you gave it, it was there. He lost the birthright and the blessing.

The Bible says that Esau sought an altar of repentance, but it was too late. Even though he cried with tears, he could not get back what had been lost. Now, God is a good God, he's a merciful God, but there are some things if we let them go, we will not be able to get them back. There are some things that if you break it, you can't fix it. That's the way that it is. I want to read that passage in the book of Hebrews there, chapter 12, verse 16 and 17, and it's reflecting on Esau's reaction when he lost the blessing.

So in Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 16 and 17, it says, "Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." We often go through life, people go through life ignoring God. God trying to reach into their life, God trying to turn them aside, and we go on and we ignore what God is doing. We brush it off for the moment, and we look at what we want.

We think we can do that later on down the road, not understanding we might not have a later down the road. We don't know what's coming down the road. We don't know that what we're giving up right now may put us in a position that down the road we can't receive what God wants us to have. So we need to understand that today—that's why the Bible says "now" is the day of salvation. The Bible says we're not promised tomorrow, but today I got breath. Today I can seek God. Today I can receive something from God. Amen. Don't be a man or woman of the moment, but be somebody that's willing to reach out now.

Amen. You can say, "Well, I haven't had an angel come my way. I haven't had a voice speak to me. I haven't had a feeling on me." But again, God often deals with us in still, small voices, where we look at ourselves and say, "I'm doing some things I shouldn't be doing," or, "I'm thinking a way I shouldn't be thinking," or, "Maybe there's going to come a day if I die, am I ready to go to heaven?" Those are God's voices speaking to us. That is God reaching for us. That is how God deals with us. He gives us a still, small thing in our spirit where he's speaking to us, and based on what we do with that often will determine what's coming down the road later on.

So Esau, he's a man of the moment. He had no idea that it was going to turn out the way that it did. Then we look at Jacob. He's a man that's always reaching. His desire to have something better, that's okay. But he also would use deceit and manipulation to obtain these things. So there's nothing wrong with reaching, but we've got to reach in a way that's acceptable to God. And we must reach for things that God desires for us to have. Amen. And again, just because society says it's okay does not mean that God says it's okay. Just because our friends say it's okay does not mean God says it's okay.

Even if it's okay for somebody else does not mean it's okay for me. What does God say about my life? See, we've got to understand that God's got a plan for each one of us. And everybody in the room may—God may have a similar plan that's different from mine, but I've got to listen to what God says for me. You must listen to what God says for you. And so again, God is often reaching into our lives on a daily basis trying to get us to turn aside. So Jacob's life would illustrate the law of reaping and sowing. He's got a lot of bad things that come down the road later on in his life. But really, what came to him was the same kind of things he was already doing to others.

He's deceiving his father to get a blessing. He's deceived by his father-in-law. He's manipulating things to get ahead. His father-in-law manipulates him. So we've got to understand that the law of reaping and sowing—sometimes we're mad at society. Sometimes we're mad at people around us. Sometimes we're angry at things that are happening. We're angry at God that things that are happening to us, when really, we have done some things that have sowed those things and we are now reaping in our lives the effects of things we've sowed. We're upset somebody's been lying to us; we thought they were giving us the truth. They lied to us, they took advantage of us, but we ignore the fact that we lied here and lied there and lied there and lied there. And it might have been 10 years ago, but we didn't repent about it. Now we're reaping what we sowed.

We've been rude here, we've been rude there. Amen. We were uncaring here, we were hard there. Now somebody's rude and uncaring to us, and we're angry about it. Or we were robbing other people, and now we got robbed and we're angry at the robber when we've been a robber. I'll never forget when I—before I knew the Lord, and when I wasn't living right—I was at a party one night with some friends. And there was a guy in there that seemed like he was always bragging about whose car he broke into and stole their tape deck out of it. And one night, all of a sudden he's all angry. What's he angry about? Somebody broke into his car and stole his tape deck.

And I'm going, "How are you angry? You've been doing it to everybody else. Now why are you angry? You should have thought about how you're going to feel if they did it to you before you did it to them." But you see, that's how we are. And a lot of times we are living in ways that we are setting ourselves up for things to happen down the road. Reaping and sowing. You sow good, you're going to reap good. You sow love, you're going to reap love. You sow hate, you're going to reap hate. Amen. Praise God. So Jacob's father-in-law, his life's going to illustrate. His father-in-law's going to deceive and manipulate him. Jacob's striving to obtain things is so strong that it created problems in his life. And again, reaching is fine, but we need to reach for God.

The Bible says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Now, what most of us do is we seek first our things and if we got what we wanted, then if we got time left over we'll seek God. That's not what it says. It says, "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." When I put God first—and again, God knows you got to work, you got to study, you got to do different things. He's not saying ignore your responsibilities, but he is saying take some time that you've got—and we all got some free time some place—and use that first to seek me. Do you believe that? If you believe it, say amen. Amen.

So we often reach for things. We often reach for things that are not what God wants us to reach for, or we reach for what we want in life. So let's talk about Jacob's life just a little bit here. He's able to obtain that birthright and the blessings from his father, but his life would be one of ups and downs. He gets the birthright, but now Esau really's got a grudge against him. He gets the blessing. Now Esau wants to kill him. He's got to flee for his life to Padan-aram, which is modern Iraq. He works seven years for Rachel but's given Leah. He's got to work seven more years.

He works for his father-in-law Laban and increases his own wealth and his own father's wealth. But now Laban starts to turn against him because he's jealous that Jacob is doing well. Even though Laban is doing better than he was before, he flees from Laban and Laban intends to kill him, but God intervenes. Amen. So Jacob's got ups and downs in his life, but his ups and downs are really a result of the way he is handling life himself. Again, we want to blame God. We want to blame the government. More laws. Laws do not change character. A good character does not need a law to do the right thing. Amen.

If you got God, then you got Ten Commandments in you. And the Bible says don't lie, you're not going to lie. I don't need a law. Don't steal. I don't need a law. Don't covet. I don't need a law. I don't need a law on the books; I got a law from God. Love your neighbor. I don't need a law to be nice. Amen. And so when you got God, God is going to work and change. Laws do not change character. All laws do is try to restrain people from doing things they would do if there was no law.

So you got people clamoring for laws. Change this law, get rid of guns because guns kill people. Guns don't kill anybody. You ever walk into a gun store and a gun shot at you? Guns do not kill anybody. It's the people with the guns. Amen. Again, we're living in a world you got people that refuse to believe there are actually evil people. There are people in the world that have evil intentions, and the only thing that will stop them is law and guns and things that will physically restrain them. There are people, there are governments like that.

There are people you cannot bargain with because they'll act like they're agreeing with you and they're preparing to kill you. And they'll smile while they kill you. So you have to understand that. So the only refuge is God. The only refuge is God. So Jacob, he returns to Canaan, and his daughter is seduced leading to Levi and Simeon, his two oldest sons, deceiving and killing all the men of Shechem. This is Jacob's life. There's contention between Jacob's wives and his sons. He's got a very disconnected family. He's got a wife that he loves that he worked seven years for and was given another one. So he works another seven years. So he's got one he loves and one that loves him, and they're at odds.

And then they give their handmaidens, and he's got four wives, and there's all kinds of mess in his family. Rachel dies, the wife he loves dies giving birth to her second son. Jacob's sons plot to kill Rachel's oldest son Joseph because they don't like him. Now remember, this is a family that's got a promise from God. That's why I say I still got a promise. All things could get messy, but I still got a promise. Things can be upsetting, but I still got a promise. Things can be out of whack, but I still got a promise. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Amen. It might not work the way I think, but I got a promise. Hallelujah. 21 years later, Jacob finds out Joseph is still alive.

He's had an up and down life. The family's been a mess. Brothers against brothers, wives against wives, deceiving their father, lying to their father. But then Jacob is getting ready to die. He stands up and gives a prophecy to each one of his 12 sons. He tells them, "This is what's going to happen to you." How can he do that? Because he's got a promise. Amen. He's got a promise from God. So when we look at Jacob's lives, one of the things that's interesting is that God intervenes in Jacob's life in a number of different places.

When Jacob flees from his brother Esau to Padan-aram, God appears to him in a dream and confirms the promise of Abraham to Jacob. If you read that in that passage in Genesis 28, 12 through 15, you see that God is letting Jacob know, "Now you've got the promise. Abraham had it, Isaac your dad had it, now you've got the promise. I have appeared to you and I am speaking it to you." So this is the first thing that Jacob's got really going solid for him. Jacob goes to Padan-aram, he's there about 20 years, and God finally tells him it's time to leave, it's time to go back to Canaan.

So Jacob goes on his way back, and on his way he has to—he has to sneak out because he knows his father-in-law and his brothers-in-laws are against him. He understands that. And he knows even though they're being against him and mean, they don't want the daughters and all the stuff to go away. So he has to sneak out. And when he sneaks out and his father-in-law finds out, he catches up with him and he wants to do harm to him. But God says, "Do no harm to him. He belongs to me." Oh, it's good to belong to God. Amen. It's good to have God in your life. Amen. You don't know who God—somebody wants to do something to you and God tells them, "You do not."

Come on, God does that today. You don't know the time you walked down the street and somebody meant to jump you, but God intervened. God sent an angel and they were afraid. Listen, you might think you're walking along, but those that see you that are against you might see others walking with you. I've heard stories of missionaries where the guerrillas wanted to kill them and said, "If you preach again, we're going to kill you." But they said, "We've got to preach. That's why we're here." So they got on the porch and preached, and they could see those men off in the distance, and later on they ran into those men.

And the missionary said, "How come you didn't do anything?" He said, "You hired the army." He said, "I didn't hire anybody." He said, "There was men in uniform standing around." God sent angels. Amen. Hallelujah. God will do that for you. You got no idea what God will do for you. If you are living for God, you are his anointed. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Jesus. Hallelujah. Come on, anointed does not just mean preacher or teacher or prophet. If you are living for God, you've got God's anointing.

And God says, "Touch not my anointed." So that night, he hears Esau's coming. So he sends the children on ahead and he sends most of the flocks on ahead and he's left there by himself wrestling with an angel. He's wrestling with an angel. It's really God manifest in a physical body. And in that wrestling match, he receives a name change, the name of Israel. God says, "You're not Jacob anymore. You're now Israel. You're a prince that's got power with God."

See, sometimes we can get some things because we'll hold on or reach for God. This is where Jacob's tenacity worked to his favor. I'm going to reach and I'm not letting go till you give me a blessing. Hallelujah. All right, Jacob, you're not Jacob anymore, you're now Israel. Amen. Jacob is told by God later on to return to Bethel. These are just different things in Jacob's life. And finally, Jacob is told by God to go down to Egypt to be with Joseph and to sojourn there and that God would bring them—be with them and God would make a nation of them down there. So we see that God is working in Jacob's life. Why is God working in Jacob's life? God intervened with Jacob because he had the promise.

Do you want God to work in your life? You've got to reach for God's promise. Amen. If you get God's promise in your life, God will start to show up in your life and work for you. God will work and open doors even when there seems to be no door. God will make a way where there seems to be no way. God will help you when there seems to be no help. Amen. God will even give you understanding about things you don't understand about so that you can accomplish what you need to accomplish. God will give you strength when you got no strength. Amen.

God gave Samson strength when he had no more strength. But Samson said, "Just one more time, God." And God made him supernaturally strong. God is not a respecter of persons. Amen. Jacob had a value for the spiritual things that Esau did not have a value for. And when a person values spiritual things and responds to them, it opens doors for the Lord to speak to us. Now see, sometimes we want to hear more from God, but we're not responding to what he's already given us. God, I want to know what I need to do with my life, but you don't go to church. And you know you ought to.

God, I want to know, should I do this or that? But you don't pray and seek God. And sometimes God is, as I've already said, God is speaking to us, but we're not used to his voice because we have a preconceived idea that maybe he's going to talk like this, when it might just be a real small, wee voice. And it might even sound like somebody else you know. Amen. You know, if you're married, sometimes God speaks through your spouse to you. Says things you don't like. But you got to learn to hear the voice of God.

That's right. Praise God. See, God doesn't always just speak the way we want. Balaam was so hard-headed he had to speak through a donkey in the Old Testament. Donkey actually speaks to him, lets him know, "Hey, you're beating me because I'm not doing what you want, but I'm going off the path because there's an angel with a sword standing here to kill you, and you don't see him." So God will speak to us. And so sometimes we don't value what God has given us already. You know they say that people that become rich, they value a penny. They value the dime.

They're the people that would pick that dime or that penny up off of the street. They wouldn't throw it because they know that all of it together amounts to an inheritance. It's the same thing with God. I take that little bit there, I take this little bit here, and I put it together and it becomes a big thing. Right? And the Bible says that. He said, "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little." Is he going to speak the truth? That's how God speaks and guides us. Gives you a line here; gives you the next line next week.

God didn't speak to Moses till Moses turned aside. God made an illustration, God made a phenomena that Moses could see. And he could have said, "Well, that's amazing, but I got work to do. I'm out here and I got a lot of sheep and I got to get them back and take care of them and it's hot out here, it's been a long day, and I got to get back to the house. But here's a burning bush." And the Bible says when God saw that Moses turned aside to see, God spoke to Moses out of the bush.

Again, oftentimes God is speaking into our lives, but we won't turn aside to it. "Oh yeah, that's interesting, but I got to do this. I wonder what that is, but I want this. I like this. Well, I know that's God speaking, or I'm not sure what that is, but this is my plan and this is what I want to do. And I'll come back later and look." I guarantee you that if Moses had not turned aside, that bush wouldn't be burning tomorrow. We have to seek God when we have an opportunity. And often we are asking the Lord to speak and he's not responding because we're not responding to the spiritual things that he's said to us already. Amen. Then he doesn't speak anymore. He'll say little things like you need to pray. You need to repent.

He'll say things like, "Well, you're not supposed to live that way," and then you'll say, "But I don't have strength to do it," and God'll say, "Well, you need to get born again. You need to make a commitment to me." People want a relationship without a commitment. We're living in an age of that. They want the value of a relationship without a commitment, and you see that in people's religious and spiritual lives. They want the value of God committing to them without them making a commitment to God. They want God on their terms. They want to be God. When I want God on my terms, I want to be God. If he's really God, I've got to come to him on his terms, not my terms.

So Jacob was willing to reach for what God had for him. Now notice, obeying and seeking the Lord brings protection of God. So in Genesis 35 and 1, this is one of the places where because Jacob had the promise, God is looking, God is guiding him. He's just gone through a big upheaval. He's come back to the land of Canaan. His daughter Dinah's gone out to see the country. She's seduced by the prince of Shechem. He wants to marry her, and they're saying, "We don't—that's not God's way. We don't have our women shack up with people just because you care about them. That's not God's way. And besides that, we're not going to marry you because you got a different point of view. We're not going to let you marry her even though you love her because you've got a different way of looking at life than God's way." We got a promise.

So his sons devise a method to save their daughter. So they make a promise. They said, "If all the men will get circumcised, we'll give our daughter to you." But Simeon and Levi've got a plan that when they're all circumcised and they're weak, they'll come by with the sword and slay them all, and that's what they do. Now Jacob doesn't know anything about it. So now Jacob's in a strange land and he's just had this violence to a city. And now he's worried about all the other people coming around. "They're going to come around and come together and they're going to kill us all." But God says to Jacob, Genesis 35:1: "And God said unto Jacob, 'Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.'"

Then Jacob said unto his household and all that were with him, "Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments. And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went." And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was in Shechem. And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. You see what happened when he obeyed God. When he went to go back to where he first started his relationship. Bethel means "the house of God." God was saying, "Get back to the place where I first appeared to you."

"I first gave you the promise. Get back to that place." That's what I want you to do, and when he started to obey that, the fear of God moved on all the people that would have been against him. You live for God, God will protect you. God will protect you. Yes. Knew a preacher in Brockton here about 30 years ago. He was coming down the street on Main Street in Brockton, and there was a group of kids on his car. He said, "Get away from my car, stop being on my car," and they surrounded him and said, "We're going to get you, preacher." He said, "No, you're not." He said, "You're all alone." He said, "No, I'm not. God's with me," and he walked through the midst of them, and that was the end of it. God will protect you.

God can be with you. God's bigger than any knife, any gun, any chain, any group, any club. God is bigger. God is bigger than any government. God is bigger. You live for God and God will take care of you. So Jacob starts to do what God says and God starts to work and protect them. So Bethel for the Christian is not a place. God said, "Get back to this place where you made a commitment to me." He had the dream there. He saw the ladder, angels descending and ascending up to heaven, and God at the top of the ladder saying, "I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and I'm giving you the promise." Get back to the place where you made a commitment to me. That's the house of God, Bethel.

Get back to that place. But notice, he can't just get back there any old way. He recognizes, "I've got to do some things. I'm going to get some things out of my life before I can go. I got to get the things that God does not agree with out of my life before I go. Get the idols out of the life." Amen. I can't just go any old way. I got to change my clothes. I got to get cleaned up. Amen. I got to do my best to present myself. I can't make myself right, but I can at least acknowledge God that he's worthy of my best effort to present myself before him. Amen. And they got rid of all the things that God did not want them to have in their life. You got people coming to church, amen, and they're not willing to put anything aside.

They're trying to bring all that they got in their life into the house of God. And sometimes you don't know any better, but God knows that. But if you know better, sometimes you got to get some things out of your life before you can have God in your life. Let's give him some praise. Lord, we praise you. Lord, we thank you, Jesus. We worship you, Lord God. We magnify you, Lord God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And if you come to know God and now he slipped out of your life, or you let him slip away, understand you may have to make some changes in order to get that relationship back to where God wants it to be. Amen. We're talking about Jacob and his life. Amen.

So throughout the story of Jacob's life, if you read it, you see that he vacillates. God gives him a name of Israel and he vacillates between it. Sometimes he's called Israel, sometimes he's called Jacob. And as one man pointed out, it seems to be when he's in a carnal nature following himself, he's Jacob, and when he's spiritual, it's Israel. And that would make sense because Jacob is his natural name, but Israel is the name that God gave him. Amen. And he's a lot like the born-again believer. We come to God and we get an experience with God, but a lot of times as we live our life, we vacillate. We're hot for God on Sunday and maybe Tuesday and Wednesday, and we're back to Jacob on Thursday and Friday.

And when he's Israel, he's getting what God's got for him. When he's Israel, he's walking in the inspiration of God, the anointing of God. He's walking with the name that God has given him. He's walking in what God has promised him. Israel, you're a prince with God. You've got power with God. What does that mean? That means that Jacob, when you're walking the way I want you to walk, you can have access. You can talk to me, I'll hear you, I'll answer you, I'll watch you, I'll take care of you. So Jacob goes back and forth. Amen. He goes back and forth between his new name, his old name, the carnal man, the spiritual man, and he's going back and forth.

But on the last day of Jacob's life, Genesis 49, verses 1 and 2. Jacob knows he's about to die. And it says in verse 1: "And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, 'Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.'" Now he's prophesying. Now he's prophesying. All the rest of the chapter almost is that prophecy. Amen.

And verse 33 at the end of the chapter: "When Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed and yielded up the ghost." He said Israel's going to talk to you. Israel's going to tell you what to happen. Amen. And when he's done talking, he goes out of this life. Jacob stood, Jacob held onto the promise of God to the end. He vacillated back and forth, but in the final analysis, he says, "I am Israel, and I am telling you what is going to happen." He prophesied to those 12 sons. So Jacob went up and down.

But because he had a promise, he persevered. Now, maybe you're not that familiar with the story and so what I'm saying is kind of going by you. But if you put yourself in Jacob's place—running from his brother, hoping he's going to see his mother again and never seeing his mother Rebekah again, working seven years in a strange land for a wife and getting a different wife, working another seven years for that wife, and then having contention in the family because of who's bearing children, then getting handmaidens and other kids and contention among the kids and the children lying, planning to kill one of their brothers—not a happy family.

And if you didn't know Jacob had the promise, you'd say they're not too much different than anybody else. But God had a promise. Jacob had a promise. How could Jacob make it all the way through? Because he had a promise. God would speak to him, and when he would listen to what God said, God would be with him. If you get a promise from God in your life, God will be there and help you go where you need to go and do what you need to do. Now the promise today is to be born again. That's the promise.

What does born again mean? Born again means you get the Spirit of God in your life. Born again means you die to your sinful nature. You repent. You repent of your sins. You repent and ask God to forgive you. Admit you're a sinner and that God is right, and you ask God to forgive your sins. And if you're asking God to forgive your sins and you mean it, that means you're going to do what God says to do, right? Because if you're not willing to do what God says to do, you're not really repenting. You're just trying to get out of the penalty. But repentance is not just wanting to be done with the penalty; it's wanting to live right for God.

So the Bible says that if I believe God, I should get baptized in Jesus' name. Like somebody's going to do next Sunday. The Bible says that I need to receive the Spirit of God speaking in tongues. Remember Brother Mark was reading about the missionaries? And they were saying, "We baptized some, but we got some that got the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues." Still happens today. That's right. The reason more people don't get it is they don't really yield to God. Speak last week, we talked about belief unto commitment. You got to commit yourself into God's hand.

When you commit yourself into God's hand, now God can do what he needs to do. As long as I hold back and try to run an area of my life, I have not really committed myself into God's hand. If I repent, get baptized in Jesus' name, and get the Holy Ghost, I'll be born again. And it's just like Jacob, I got a new name. I got the name of Jesus. It's now Craig Ouellette Jesus. It's now Matt Sattel Jesus. Amen. We're talking about Jacob was able to do what he did because he had a promise. Every one of us has got things in our life that we can't understand.

We don't know what's coming down the road. We don't have any idea. But if you got a promise from God, you can handle the situation. Would you stand here this morning? Do you have a promise? Don't leave without a promise. You need a promise. You don't know what's going to happen down the road. You drive down to the corner, you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Everything's good. Listen, there could be an earthquake tomorrow in this area. Get a promise from God, do what God says. And if you got a promise, continue to reach for that promise.

Now I can remember before I had a promise living for God. Amen. It was all up to me. I didn't have anybody else. Even if my parents loved me, there were some things that only I could do. I had to do it; there was no other help. That's why people get high, that's why people give up, that's why people do bad things. They got no other help. But when I came to God, when I came to God in 1977, now it's not just up to me. I got a helper, I got a promise. I got somebody that's going to be with me, stick with me through the night. Amen. When I'm at my end of my rope, I got God that's got more rope.

Amen. When I got no strength to hold onto the rope, I got God that can give me strength. When I don't have a way, I got a God that makes a way. When I don't know if I can take it, I got a God that says, "I'll never let anything more on you come than you're able to bear. I'll make a way for you." Come on, you need a promise, I need a promise. And the only way to have the promise from God is you got to commit to God. You must repent. You must obey God, get baptized in Jesus' name. You must seek to get the Holy Ghost. This altar's open here this morning. Praise God.

Lord, we thank you, Lord God. Help everyone here to understand, we need a promise. We need a promise. Amen. No government can keep the promise, but you can keep the promise. Hallelujah. No education can guarantee it, but you can guarantee it, Lord God. Hallelujah. We need a promise, I need a promise, Lord God. You're the promise keeper, Lord God. We thank you, Lord, here today. Oh, move upon us, Lord God. Help us, Lord, to reach out, Lord God, to believe, Lord God. Hallelujah. If we reach for you, if we obey you, if we seek you, Lord God, you'll make a way, Lord God. We praise you, Lord, we thank you, Lord God.

Hallelujah. Everybody that's reaching, speak to their heart, speak to their mind. Let hope arise, let God arise. Oh, put it in their heart, Lord God, to yield up, to let go of the past, to let go of what they think they need to do and let you become the guide. Hallelujah. Raise them up, God, by your power and might. Raise them up, God, in the newness. Oh, give them faith and courage to repent and commit and believe that you're able to keep what's committed unto them against that day. Hallelujah. Help them, Lord, to cast their cares upon you, Lord God. Hallelujah. Help them, Lord, to cast their cares upon you, Lord God. Hallelujah.

Guest (Female): Thank you for joining us today as we have studied the Word on Apostolic Truth Radio. My name is Tina Ouellette, wife of Pastor Craig Ouellette of South Shore Pentecostal Church, located at 58 West Street in Whitman, Massachusetts. If you love praise and worship, you will love services at South Shore Pentecostal Church, and we invite you to come and worship with us. Sunday School for all ages begins at 10:00 a.m. and our Sunday evening service begins at 6:00 p.m. Adult Bible study and children's churches are held on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m.

You can learn more about our church on our website at southshorepentecostal.com, or you may call us at 781-447-1668. If you have been blessed by this radio ministry, you can help support Apostolic Truth Radio via online giving through Venmo at SSPCWhitman. Write us today and request a free copy of today's message and join us for another broadcast of Apostolic Truth.