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[0:00] In dependence upon the Lord for needful help, I direct your attention this evening to Psalm 146 and verse 5.

[0:12] Psalm 146 and verse 5. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.

[0:30] Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.

[0:41] It is not a natural pathway to walk in, to have the God of Jacob for our help and to have our hope in the Lord our God.

[1:00] It is something that fallen nature knows nothing about and doesn't want. When we see how this was brought about in the life of God's servant Jacob, it stands out clearly as a mark of sovereign grace.

[1:29] The Lord brought him to this place. It was God's mighty work to teach his dear servant and lead him in such a way that that dear man of God came to make that confession in his dying hour.

[1:53] That life's journey for him had been a solemn communion with his God every step of the way.

[2:06] And how solemn those steps had been. His God had brought him into them, taught him in them.

[2:18] His God had brought him into them, taught him in them, taught him in them, taught him in them, taught him in them.

[2:48] For all those cross-handed blessings, the bringing of him through those deep waters, those paths of bitter sorrow, and bringing him eventually to lay all of it at his dear feet as being right before him.

[3:18] The psalmist here has great wisdom, divine wisdom given to him.

[3:31] In the uttering of these words, he points God's church to that right way, that only way, that way in which there is no deviation, no bypass meadow, no turning to the right hand or the left, but a blessed resting and leaning upon God.

[4:10] Lord, what a wonder it is when God's children are brought into this straight and narrow way, and they're brought to follow their God and to lean hard upon him.

[4:31] Who would desire us, Lord, may help us this evening to look at some of the truth that lies here?

[4:41] What is this happiness that is spoken of? Deeply mysterious, not the frivolities of this world. This happiness is not freedom from affliction and trouble.

[5:00] Something vastly different. We desire as the Lord may help us to look into this word. equally we desire to look into the pathway of Jacob and to see the truth that lies in this word which appears in the scripture from time to time, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

[5:31] We would like to look, if the Lord may help us, into this word, help. What help is spoken of here?

[5:49] It is something far deeper than the provisions of providence in this life. Something far greater. Something of far more value and significance lies in this word.

[6:09] The pathway of those whose hope is in the Lord their God. As the Lord may help us, we desire to look first at this word, happy.

[6:21] You see, dear friends, the happiness that is spoken of here is the divine approbation of their God in their soul.

[6:36] It is for the sinner to be brought into a place where they are brought to recognize and know the will of their God in all things pertaining to them.

[6:53] It is to be brought into that place where there is no barrier between their soul and their God.

[7:09] Happiness here, I believe, that is spoken of is that fruit of the atonement, that divine reconciliation which Christ brought out upon the cross, sweetly revealed in the soul of a sinner, that there is peace between their soul and their God.

[7:32] That is irrespective of what is happening in their life. We are looking at the priority here. It may be, you see, that they are being bitterly persecuted, despised, mocked and hated, but they have peace between their soul and their God.

[7:53] It may be they are standing for the truth, but they are suffering for it, but they have peace. And yet, you know, in the deepest bitterness of his soul, his eyes were up to his God.

[8:37] And in that, in that confession at the end of his days, the dear man of God has certain things to say in the opening of that chapter.

[8:57] And you know, the happiness that he speaks of in the third verse, God Almighty appeared to me at last.

[9:11] Why, it was an hour of deep sorrow. It was an hour when he left his home, fled, under a dark cloud of deception, and laid his head upon that pillow of stone that night.

[9:35] God Almighty, as he said, this is in the end of his days, he looked back to it, appeared to him at last. And there, as he called that place Bethel, he knew the blessed happiness of what it was, in the midst of his darkness, and sin, and sorrow, and loneliness, and bitterness of his soul, for his God to appear.

[10:13] To visit his soul, and to come into his heart, and to give him a precious promise. To speak a word into his soul.

[10:26] Can there be any greater happiness in this life than a visit from the Lord? He looked back upon that occasion, in this, his dying hour, as something to be sweetly remembered.

[10:47] Undeserving of the least of God's mercies, as he knew he was, and felt he was, he had a visit from his God. Not to destroy him, not to cut him off, but to give him that precious promise that he would be with him.

[11:14] And that he would bless him. Undeserving as he was, of the least of all God's mercy, I tell you this, it was an experience like his son Joseph knew when the Lord visited him with his dream.

[11:34] Almost certainly the first visit, that precious experience, his Bethel, was the hour not of human happiness, but the hour of comfort in his soul.

[11:51] And here was the fulfillment of this word, that the God of Jacob was his help. He came to help him.

[12:02] You see, Esau knew nothing of that, nothing of that happiness. His happiness was in this world.

[12:13] Jacob was favored. And you know, when he came to die, he went back to it.

[12:26] The hour when the Lord first met with him. The hour when the Lord first spoke to him. The hour when his God touched his heart and opened his ears.

[12:38] The hour when he had such a sweet realization as Paul had Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus when the Lord brought him and bowed him down before him.

[12:52] Oh dear friend, the happiness. Do you look back to a spot, a time, a place when the Lord called you out of nature's darkness into his marvelous light.

[13:15] When you heard the voice of your God, the blessedness that is spoken of here is something deep and sacred.

[13:32] It is the inward joy and peace in believing and the happiness that Jacob came away with was the precious promise divinely given in his soul with almighty power that I'll be with thee in all places with us wherever thou going and I will not leave thee.

[13:57] There is nothing to be compared in this world to one word, one promise, one blessed soul visit of the Lord to a poor sinner.

[14:13] There is nothing to be compared to it. Every other happiness will be fleeting and passing like the morning mist but not this.

[14:25] It is substantial, unalloyed, never to be taken away and it is the beginning of a whole series of blessings which were to follow in Jacob's sad life.

[14:47] And all the deep mystery when we trace it out, the happiness. You know, it is often the case that the dawn is most appreciated after a long dark night.

[15:14] The spring is most appreciated after a long, hard, bitter winter. And so it was happiness with the Lord's dear servant Jacob.

[15:30] Happiness, when we think of his life, the God of Jacob, when we look at Jacob's life, why his life was one full of sorrow, began with deception, it was followed by deception, and more deception.

[15:49] If ever a man sowed to the wind and reaped to the whirlwind, he did. you might think in your heart, well, we shall have a hard job to find any much happiness in his life.

[16:06] But the God of Jacob, or when we look at God's dealings with his dear servant, let us trace them.

[16:20] I will not leave thee until I have brought thee again to this place. How did he bring him? Why, he brought him through Jabba, his brother coming to meet him with armed men.

[16:33] He brought him through the deceptions of his uncle Laban. He dealt with him. You see, let us view it in this line, that the Lord dealt with him in love and divine justice and chastening.

[16:52] He was to be brought into the conviction of his sin, of the deception of his dear godly father, as he had deceived him in those solemn words. The hand is the hand of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob.

[17:08] I was ever to follow him. And you know, as the Lord dealt with all the deception that he passed through with Laban, then to come to face his brother with armed men, what happened?

[17:21] Happy is the man that had the god of Jacob his help. You view him in that solemn scene as he was full of fears and sent those presents on ahead to his brother and then he turned.

[17:39] All the wisdom, all the wisdom, happy is the man, all the wisdom.

[17:49] In his affliction, he went alone to wrestle with his God. We don't have to inquire the subject of his wrestling prayer.

[18:04] We can hear the beauty of it in these words, Lord, thou said, God almighty that met me at life. the sacred promise of that dear man of God that was given to him in that hour pleaded that you have a thou sin.

[18:27] Will not leave him. Oh, how he had real fears that God would leave him, that he would die and that his whole family would be destroyed.

[18:43] he came in absolute need and impotence and inability to do anything and he bowed himself there and oh, the happiness.

[18:57] Not the happiness of this world, nothing to do with it, but the happiness of drawing near to his God in his sorrow and in his fear and in his temptation and in his darkness, in the great trouble that was upon him, to prove what it was, to wrestle with his God and to come to that blessed point where he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me.

[19:32] You see, the happiness of God's dear church is this, to deal with that same Jesus, unalterably the same. Has the Lord called you in?

[19:49] Has he laid a promise in your heart? Has he brought you to those places where you have had to wrestle with him and where he has answered you?

[20:04] where you have entered into that lovely hymn, wrestling prayer can wonders do, bring relief in deepest straits, prayer can force a barrier through iron bars and brazen gates.

[20:22] Oh God, oh Lord, I am oppressed, I am weighted down, I am crushed, I cannot bear any more, I have nowhere else to flee, I am the man that has known affliction.

[20:42] That was the path that Jacob walked in and it was this, I brought it on my own here, I deserve every particle of it, I have nothing to please, Lord, happiness, happy is the man, ah yes, who in his deepest, darkest, sorrows, with nothing to please, comes to his God and wrestles with him as Jacob wrestled there, what a blessed example this is of the pathway of God's dear children, he blessed him there, all his happiness, in that moment he knew that God had heard him, in that moment he knew the language of that dear woman, the Shunammite, it is well, he knew it, he knew that all would be well, without doubt he couldn't see how it would be done, but he knew that his God had heard his prayer,

[22:04] I will not let thee go except thou bless me, he knew that his sin was pardoned there, that his soul was washed in the fountain of the precious blood of Christ, and we read of it in his dying utterance, the angel that redeemed me from all evil, all the experience, the happiness in his soul, nothing had happened outwardly, Esau was still coming, he didn't know what was happening when the Lord blessed him that night, and the sacred approbation of his God that rested upon him was coupled with an affliction which attended him all his days, he went forth from that happiness, carrying a thorn in the flesh, halting upon his thigh, all the days of his life.

[23:21] But you see, that dear servant of God had learned what it was to lean upon his staff, he had been brought to that place where he had had to plead that precious promise which his God had given him, and all the happiness of his soul.

[23:58] He lived not only to know that his prayer was heard and answered, but to see that his God, his prayer hearing and prayer answering God could make even his enemies to be at peace with him and dear.

[24:20] And you see, in this light when we look at this happiness, the happiness that is spoken of here in principle is this, the wisdom of God's dear people as taught by the spirit in being enabled to take everything to God in prayer.

[24:53] To look for help to no one else but to him. And happiness is to come to him in every time of the peculiarly in these soul distresses and there to do business with him in deep waters and enter into that desired haven.

[25:21] Thus he bringeth them to their desired haven, the peace and the calm and the blessed quietness and confidence of his presence.

[25:33] or have you known it? In the storms of life's pathway what it has been to reach that quiet haven and the happiness of it.

[25:48] You see, Jonah went through the belly of the whale to come to the happiness of salvation is of the Lord.

[26:00] It was a sacred experience. We cannot measure this happiness in the soul. The inward joy and peace and sacred relief when the Lord appears and hears and answers the prayers of his dear church and brings them out of the solemn affections which come upon them.

[26:29] And he, his sovereign as Jonah was three days and three nights said Christ in the belly of the whale and he came forth.

[26:42] He came forth into the joy and peace and presence of his God to know his sin pardoned, to pass through sweet repentance and godly sorrow and confession for his great rebellion and to go in peace and happiness and approbation of his God.

[27:10] And you see, I would point out this pathway. Happy is the man that hath the God of Jacob is help. If I may go now to speak for a moment or two about this hell.

[27:31] This hell is not just to take you out of your trouble. It's something vastly different. This help is to teach you, is to use the pathway to your eternal welfare.

[27:50] We look at it in a very simplistic way. If we think that it is just to be delivered out of our trouble. God has brought you into darkness, into sorrow, into oppression.

[28:05] He has done it. My late dear father used to say in his prayer, when he was in deep affliction, Lord, let me not come out of this affliction without it being sanctified.

[28:27] His object was not to get out of his affliction. love. Oh, that from them there might come precious fruit.

[28:39] That they might be the very means of driving us to the Lord where we are so prone to walk at a distance. You see, Peter walked at a distance.

[28:55] The Lord left him to enter into a deep sorrow, a bitter sorrow. And then brought him so close to himself in godly sorrow and repentance and to Galilee where there was that place where there wasn't anything between them.

[29:16] Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. All forgiven, all pardon, help. Or when we come to look at Jacob's affliction, the help that his God gave him, what a help it was.

[29:34] He used the pathway to bring him nearer to himself. He used his pathway to give him an ever deeper understanding of himself.

[29:52] What was in Jacob's heart, what he was capable of, God's love? Or he used his sorrows to bring him down. And he used his sorrows in his hand to bring him to have such a God-exalting view of his God, everlasting loving kindness.

[30:15] He says in that lovely chapter, I hadn't thought to see thy foe, didn't deserve to see him. God has shown me thy two sons also. Oh, the miracle.

[30:25] this is the root of the language of the church bringing forth the head cornerstone crying, grace, grace unto him.

[30:42] And this was what was in Jacob's heart. The help of God, if we may go on, is to speak in this vein, is to chasten.

[30:55] Oh, not what we would expect of help. The world thinks of help as to snatch a person out of their affliction. But God lays his dear church on beds of affliction for their help.

[31:11] Oh, what a help it is that they may be brought apart, separated. He brings them into deep loneliness and sorrow for their help.

[31:23] To bring them nearer in a way than they have ever been before to himself because they have come to feel their need deeper than they have ever felt it before.

[31:36] Their need of him. Cannot go on without him. They know not how to bear the burdens that are laid upon their shoulders. But you see, equally for their help it is to bring his church, and I believe this to be verily true, into fellowship with Christ in his suffering.

[31:55] all this is the hell, all the strength that lies in the Lord bringing his dear church into fellowship with him and his suffering.

[32:11] Catch a glimpse of what he suffered with then. You know, it is these things which under the teaching of spirit are the very means of bringing his church to hope.

[32:31] They are. We read in the epistle of Paul to the Romans that tribulation work is patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.

[32:47] That's the origin of it. blessed soul visits in the darkest valleys of the experience of God the dearest saints.

[32:59] The soul visits from Christ, the blessed promises given to them, the precious blood applied to their conscience, in these deep valleys, all the precious nature of those precious promises given in the hearts and spoken, which is the hell.

[33:28] You view this text in the light of Jabbok, happy is the man that hath the God of Jacob for his hell.

[33:39] Yes, in that dark crisis with death before them, in the reality of it, as it was with Jacob, under the deepest condemnation of God for his own sin, then to deal with his God in confession and repentance and godly sorrow in the reality of it, and to know the sweet blessings of the peace-speaking, pardoning blood of Christ in his soul, that's hell.

[34:10] putting forth of God's hand into the heart and life and circumstance and soul and need of his dear people.

[34:23] No hell can be compared with him. I do not belittle the blessings of providence, nor did Jacob. He was able to speak of the God who fed him all his life long.

[34:39] But the great hell that he spoke of to the honor and glory of God was the angel that redeemed him from all evil.

[34:54] It was a knowledge of redemption in his soul through the Lord Jesus Christ that he could speak of. And it began with that blessed happiness at Lois.

[35:12] There was, as he referred to it, the solemn loss of Rachel and the pathways God called to walk of natural sorrows and bitterness which was here.

[35:28] there was the loss of Joseph and the solemn deception all in providence. But you know, there's that lovely word in his life, it's enough.

[35:46] His immediate reaction when he knew that Joseph was alive and that Benjamin was alive and all the terrible grief in losing Rachel and both the boys that he loved, when he knew they were alive, his immediate reaction was not the others had deceived him, it wasn't enough.

[36:11] Oh, how he could see the mercy of his God. He was silent, he had not a stone to throw at his boy. He who had deceived his father and been bowed under the bitter sorrows of his heart and said, I'll go down to the grave morning, when he saw the glorious hand of his God.

[36:35] Oh, how he bowed under it. And he said, it's enough. You know, God blends his sorrows with the sweet happinesses, and he did it here in Jacob's pathway.

[36:51] God's love. The God of Jacob. I will just speak now a few words about the God of Jacob.

[37:04] He's faithful. He's judged. He's righteous. God's good when he's dealing with them.

[37:21] We're silent. As the heavens are high above the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts.

[37:34] Or do we have the sight of the God of Jacob? Good when he gives, supremely good, nor less when he was whole.

[37:49] Dear Job bowed before him, and under divine grace he said, the Lord gave. The Lord has taken away.

[38:04] Blessed be the name of the Lord. God's church, under the teaching of the Spirit, is led to know the God of Jacob.

[38:19] He deals. He is just. He is righteous. He sends the cloud.

[38:35] God's love. And he gives the sunshine. And all have sovereign in here. And you know, Jacob had caused to know the balancings of the cloud.

[38:54] God's life. As he passed through this line in the hands of the God of Jacob, he had cause to know what he sowed he must breathe.

[39:12] And yet he had cause to know that his God was with him in his pathway and did never leave him.

[39:22] The promise of life was his to a dying hour. And we see in that 48 chapter the blessed view which he had of his God.

[39:38] The promise of that land for an everlasting possession. And the sweet promises and sorrows which were his and the blessedness of the word which came from his lips as he blessed the lands.

[40:01] And as he was able to lay his hands on their head and to speak of the way that the Lord had been with him all the days of his journey.

[40:17] And to say the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk. The God which fed me all my life long unto this day.

[40:30] The angel which redeemed me from all evil blessed the land. What more could he desire than that this same God would deal with them as he had dealt with him justly mercifully.

[40:55] We see in the generation today of young people total lack of discipline and who is the loser?

[41:06] God is not like that. He disciplines his dear children.

[41:21] He puts them in the furnace of affliction in love. he brings them through the fire and not a hair of their head is tied.

[41:36] He brings them to his heavenly city. He sanctifies their affliction. He chastens them.

[41:51] He teaches them. He reveals sin in them. And he brings them as clay in the hands of the heavenly potter to be conformed to the image of his dear son.

[42:09] And he does it in love and for their good and for their hell. We are no judge of his hell.

[42:22] Our greatest sorrow are his hell. For they are to bring us to his dear feet.

[42:38] And in them we look up to heaven like Jacob did at Jabba and Jonah did in the valley of the world and many of his dear servants did.

[42:49] In affliction and dealings we look up to heaven and we cry to him in a way we've never cried before and he sends down into our hearts blessings he's never sent before.

[43:04] Him writer puts it very beautifully when he says my sorrows in the scales he weighs and measure they at my pain. He never takes away my all himself he gives me still and he does.

[43:20] When we are lowest as Jacob was then the Lord gave him his greatest blessing all marking and we see this again and again by name but one other case and that is Elijah after he fled from Jezebel laid his head down and asked the Lord to take him away and take away his life and the Lord spoke in mercy arising he journeys too great for all the communion he had with his God in that hour all the help that was his what a help we cannot measure that help because we know that the help that

[44:26]  God gives to his dear children is given for a particular hour but the sweetness and blessedness and the sacred memory of it lasts a lifetime some of the promises which God has given for a particular hour are used again and again like Jacob's staff which he leaned upon all the days of life journey happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help whose hope is in the Lord his God Amen