Kingsword Bible Study
Kingsword Bible Study
Jacob's Deception
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In this episode we go in depth looking at the account of Jacob’s deception of his father Isaac and we look at a parallel passage hiding in an unsuspecting place. Although reading in English we can easily miss it, in Hebrew we look at the many connections that exist between Jacob’s deception and the Ten Commandments and see what this connection and his deception can teach us today!
Welcome to the King's Word Bible study. Today our topic is going to be source of blessings. Let's begin today in Genesis chapter twelve. In
Genesis 27:18
SPEAKER_00Genesis chapter twelve, verse two tells us, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. The word blessed in the Hebrew appears over a hundred times in the Old Testament alone. Understanding what it truly means to be blessed is critical to properly understanding the scripture and our journey of faith. Many of the rabbinical scholars, and even the Jewish mystics, always noted that the word for blessing in the Hebrew is a dynamic, outward flowing force rather than just a static state. The word shares the same root word for the words pool, cistern, reservoir, and flowing water source. Many other rabbinical scholars note in their writings and also in the Talmud that there is a connection to the practice of bending a vine into the ground so that it takes root and grows an entirely new plant. Blessing is an act of multiplication, an outward expansion of goodness across the world. This is an amazing way to view this word, because it's not the way that we usually tend to think of it. When it comes to the specific promise that God gave to Abraham, one scholar noted, the blessings are entrusted into your hand. From now on, you may bless whomever you wish. We're called to not only merely receive the blessing, we're called to become the source of blessings, through which they flow outwardly towards others. If we're to be this source of blessing, we have to be careful to conduct ourselves in a way that's conducive to the fulfilling of that mission. This is something that we're warned against. Psalm 1 in 1 tells us, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. There's an interesting progression that's happening in this verse, and it's easy to miss if we're not careful. There's three important elements that we're told of here: walking, standing, and sitting. First, we see the danger of walking in the council of the ungodly. That means that we're actively engaging the wicked. We're walking beside them as they walk and doing as they do, heading down the wide road that only leads to hell and to destruction. It also means that we're listening to them, that we're hearing out their counsel, that we're letting them advise us as to what we should do and what they believe to be the best course of action for us. The only problem is that the wicked will never have our best interests at heart. Quite to the contrary, they often have our worst interests at heart. They want to see you be destroyed because they're serving the one who only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. We're letting them have a say in how we live our life, how we speak, how we think, and we're following them as they lead us astray, leading us further away from God and from his plan for our lives, leading us into sin, where we deviate from the will of God. That's the unavoidable effect of walking with the wicked. Next we find standing in the way of the sinners. This is more subtle than the last one, but no less dangerous. In fact, it's much more dangerous. When a man's walking, it's much easier and simpler for him to change direction or to turn around and to walk the opposite direction. But when a man's standing in
Exodus 20:2-3
SPEAKER_00place, he's stopped, he's stationary, he's indicating that he's in no rush to move or to go anywhere else. He has his feet firmly planted exactly where he is. He's standing in their way. He's firmly rooting himself, not in Christ, not upon the rock of ages, not in the narrow path that leads to eternal life, but in the way of sinners, the path that leads directly away from God. He's acclimated himself to that way of life. Then we find the warning goes even further, and it tells of the danger the man who sits in the seat of the scornful. That's the man who, beyond just being stationary and inactive, is now sitting down. He's making himself comfortable. He's now assimilating to the way of the scornful, sinful man. He has no intention on moving from where he is. That man is anything but blessed, and that's why God tells us this. He doesn't want to see us go down this path. The classic amplified makes it much clearer, and it shows this progression in greater detail. It says, blessed, happy, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly, following their advice, their plans and purposes, nor stands submissive and inactive in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down to relax and rest, where the scornful and the mockers gather. When we walk with the godly and with the righteous, when we stand firm upon Christ, when we sit down with the believers, we're happy, we're fortunate, and we're too be envied by a world that doesn't have what we have. That's why God calls us to spread his word, so that they can know how to become the blessed man too. The next two verses go on to tell us about the blessed man. Verses two to three say, But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. He bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. This is fascinating, especially as it relates to our journey of faith. We have to be planted, but we can't stop there. We're called to bear fruit too, just like the tree. We bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit, but we also have to remember that trees in the natural don't eat their own fruit. Who is it that actually benefits from the fruit? It's other people. Trees don't live for themselves, they live for others. They provide fruit,
2 Timothy 3:5
SPEAKER_00shade, shelter, oxygen, beauty, and seeds. They bless others through simply just existing. And that's what we as the blessed people of
Psalms 115:4-8
SPEAKER_00God are called to do too. You're called to be the source, to nourish those around you through the fruits of the Holy Spirit in your life. Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 to 23 say, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. These are the fruits that we're called to produce. The greatest part about it all is that we can enjoy these fruits in our own life, and others can partake of them too, by knowing us and by being around us. Other people should be able to feel at peace when they're with you. People should be able to discern the love that you have for them and feel loved. They should sense your gentleness and it should rub off on them, making them more gentle. Your joy should make them joyful. It should be contagious. All these fruits should be impacting them. The Holy Spirit isn't looking to just stay only within you. He's looking to redeem all of his children. And by your bearing fruit, you both glorify God and powerfully testify to the difference that the Holy Spirit makes in a man's life,
Genesis 31:34-36
SPEAKER_00which draws them closer to him. They're compelled by the irresistible grace of God to desire the same in their life, which opens up the door for you to witness to them and to lead them to salvation. That's the power of the tree planted by the waters. You have the promise that your leaf won't wiver, your work, your time, your effort won't be for nothing. It will prosper, it will succeed, it will bring forth a return. That's a promise of power that we have to utilize to its fullest potential. It would be foolish for us not to. Jeremiah chapter 17, verses 7 to 8 tell us, Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when he cometh, but
Exodus 20:7
SPEAKER_00her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. This sounds a lot like what we just read in Psalm 1, but there's an important difference here. Jeremiah doesn't just tell us what the blessed man will be like, he tells us why he'll be like that. What are the two things that stand out here? Trust in the Lord and hope in the Lord. We trust in him because we know him. We've experienced him firsthand in our lives. We hope in him because we know his faithfulness. We know that the same way that he's never let us down and never forsook us, that he never will in the future. We have the assurance and the confidence that only comes from being firmly rooted in Christ, having the word planted in the fertile, good soil of our heart. A heart overflowing with the fruits of the Spirit. We don't have to worry during the year of drought. All those dry seasons in our walk with God aren't going to destroy us or depress us. They're not going to diminish our faith and destroy our hope. They're instead going to push us to do more for the Lord, to seek him more wholeheartedly, and to pursue after him with more passion. The true Christian doesn't only bear fruit when everything's going good. He bears fruit even during the famine. We're an enemy-occupied territory, the conditions are never going to be optimal or perfect. But we're called to be like a greenhouse, an outpost, an embassy of the kingdom of God, even in the midst of a hostile, inhospitable land. Your life is to serve as a living testimony, a living epistle of God's goodness and faithfulness
Exodus 20:8
SPEAKER_00to his people, to show that he is a rewarder of them that do diligently seek him. Jeremiah 2 and 13 tells us, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. This is exactly what we find happening in the world and even in the church today. There's countless people who have rejected and refused the fountain of living waters, Jesus Christ. They've ignored his outstretched hand. They've walked away from his offer of grace and of eternal life. They've refused to be the cistern that he's called them to be, and instead they attempt to build their own cistern. They don't want to flow outwardly. They just want something or someone to flow inwardly towards them. They want to receive but never give. People create a cistern that they want to draw life and sustenance and provision from. They construct the functional savior of their own making and their own design. They look to money or power or entertainment.
Genesis 25:23
SPEAKER_00They look to relationships or success or to politics. They envelop themselves in social media where they look to all different types of pleasure, only to find at the end of a long, hard search that none of those cisterns can hold any water. They all fall hopelessly short of what we need and what our hearts are crying out for. We can't rely on broken cisterns, and neither can we be a broken cistern. Many people today haven't only made this mistake, but have also allowed their life and the attacks and the oppressions of the enemy to break them. They wonder why they don't feel blessed. Why does it always seem like nothing ever goes their way? Why does it always seem like so many others in the church are blessed and live abundant
Exodus 20:12
SPEAKER_00overflowing lives while they don't? Often we've unknowingly become broken cisterns. And although the Lord is trying to bless us, the blessings aren't flowing outwardly. We're not able to hold them because we're broken. Jeremiah chapter 18, verses 2 to 3 say, Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold he wrought a work on the wheels, and the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter, so we made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. That's what we are. We're the broken vessel, the broken cistern. We need to be repaired and restored, so that we can not only wisely handle and hold on to the blessings, but be prepared and be willing to use that blessing in order to bless others. How does that happen? Verse six goes further to say, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter, saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in this potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. We have to go to the potter's house. We have to get to the house of God and be like the clay, fully submitted and fully surrendered to him, so that he can mold us and fashion us in the way that he chooses. He'll make us a new, better, and more beautiful vessel, fully equipped and fully prepared for the mission that he's given us, to be a blessing and to be a source of overflowing
Micah 6:8
SPEAKER_00abundant life to those around us. It's God's will that as in 2 Timothy 3 and 17 tells us, that the man of God may be perfect, fairly furnished unto all good works. That's why he gives us his word, and more importantly, why he gives us himself, the Holy Spirit of Christ, the Logos, the Word made flesh, to dwell within
Exodus 20:13
SPEAKER_00us. God takes us as we present ourselves as a living sacrifice before his altar and makes us whole, repairing the broken and restoring what's sin ruined. Let's now go to Exodus chapter 15, where God's people had just been miraculously freed from
Genesis 27:41
SPEAKER_00their bondage in Egypt, and now find themselves entering the wilderness. Now, right after they experienced the bitter waters of Mara, in Exodus chapter 15, verse 27, were told, and they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and free score and ten palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters. These numbers that we find here aren't accidental. Just like everything else in Scripture, even the smallest, most seemingly
Matthew 5:21-22
SPEAKER_00insignificant of details are extremely intentional, and they're put there for a purpose. Here we find God's divine plan for his chosen people and for the church, hidden in Olim. First we find the twelve wells of water. These twelve wells represented the twelve tribes of Israel. Each tribe was called by God to be a cistern, that he could bless, and through them pour out his blessings on others. Then we find the seventy palm trees. This one is far more
1 John 3:15
SPEAKER_00easily missed if we're not careful. The first connection that may come to mind is the connection of the seventy elders of Israel, but it goes even deeper than that. In Genesis chapter 10, which is often called by many scholars the table of nations, we find all of the descendants of Noah's free sons, Shem, Ham, and Jepheth, listed out. There's
Exodus 20:14
SPEAKER_00seventy of them, who were called to repopulate the earth after the flood as the foundational people groups of the ancient world. Jeff had fourteen descendants, Hamed 30, Shem had twenty-six, and each of these descendants spread out and became their own nation. Verse 32 of Genesis 10 tells us, these are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, and their nations, and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. So what's the significance of all this? God has chosen his people Israel to be a blessing to the world, telling Abraham that through his seed the entire world would be blessed. That Israel, set apart by God, would be a great blessing to the Gentiles. They were the fountains, the cisterns, the wells, the sorts which the Gentile nations would draw from to receive the eternal truth of God.
Genesis 29:25
SPEAKER_00So what about today? What do the twelve wells mean for us? Galatians three and sixteen says, Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. This is what we're dealing with here. Jesus is the true Israel. He's the one that the twelve tribes were pointing us towards all along. And what about the seventy? What does that mean for us today? Luke chapter ten verses one to three say, After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face, into every city and place, whoever he himself would come. Therefore said he unto them,
Exodus 20:15
SPEAKER_00The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. Go your ways. Behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Here we find Jesus sending out seventy disciples to go to every corner of the world, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the leper, doing all that he's called his people to do. He was sending them forth to all the nations of the earth. They became the palm trees planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit and prospers in the work that it does. These men, although faced with stark opposition on all sides, although mostly martyred for their faith, planted seeds that bore abundant fruit and lit the spark in countless countries and regions all around the world, and we still feel the effect of their work today. That calling wasn't only reserved for the seventy, though, it's for us too. We're called to go forth, being a source of blessing and eternal truth, just like they were. Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 and 20 say, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
Exodus 20:16
SPEAKER_00teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. That's the great commission. We're called to go ye therefore. If they won't come to the church, we bring the church to them. We go to the ends of the earth, we reach beyond ourselves, beyond our comfort zone, beyond the four walls of the church. We bring the source of blessing to where they are, so that they can see something different, so that they can see what a changed heart and a renewed mind really look like. Numbers chapter thirty three, verses nine to ten say, and they removed from Mar and came unto Elim, and in the Lim were twelve fountains of water, and free score and ten palm trees, and they pitched there, and they removed from Elim and encamped by the Red Sea. They were reflecting on their journey, and they remembered as a
Geneis 29:26-27
SPEAKER_00landmark and as a testament to God's goodness and faithfulness, the land of Elim, where the twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees revealed the oasis in the desert that they desperately needed after tasting the bitter waters of Mara. It was relief, restoration, and redemption from an almost certain death in the wilderness. And that's the same thing that we're called to be to those in the world. We're called to be a relief, provide a spiritual resting place, and lead them to the one who can ultimately restore them and make them whole. We're called
Exodus 20:17
SPEAKER_00to be their Olim. People should remember their interactions and encounters with us the same way that the children of Israel remembered Elim. In Isaiah chapter 58, we find a promise that the Lord makes to us. Verses eleven to twelve say, And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not, and they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the paths to dwell in. Instead of just seeing people that we love and care about, and most importantly, people that God loves and cares about, walking, standing, and sitting in the way of the wicked, we're going to restore the way. We're going to repair that breach in the spirit that's keeping them separated from God and shrouded in darkness and in ignorance. We're going to shine our light onto them. We're going to be the salt of the earth. We're going to help them to encounter the God who is the one who ultimately gives the living water that we all desperately need. The river of life flows forth from his temple, and as you become the temple of God, as you are called to be, it flows forth from you. You give life, you speak life, you bring forth life through the way that you choose to live. John 7 and 38 tells us, He that believeth on me, as the Scripture have said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. That's us, that's who we are. That's what we need to be for those around us. So that just like with Abraham, we can be blessed, not just for ourselves, not just to have more things, but to be a blessing to others, to be a source for others, and for the power of God to flow out from our lives. Let's close in prayer. Lord, today we thank you for all the incredible blessings that you've given to us as your children and as your people. And Lord, today we thank you that you've granted us the wisdom and the discernment to walk in the paths of righteousness, to walk down that narrow path that leads to eternal life. And Lord, today we thank you that you're going to open up the hearts and open up the eyes of all those people around us that we love, that we care about, that we've been praying for year after year, and that they're going to see for the first time their need to come to you, that they're going to see that they've been walking down the wrong path, and that you're going to raise us up and raise up other men of God and other women of God to be restorers of the path, to be the ones who stand in the gap for the people that we love, and that you're going to show them their need to come to you and lead them home, so that your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of adoption, can bring them into your household, the household of faith. Lord, today we thank you that we're going to be a source of blessing for all those that we are around, that we're going to be a place where they can find the fruits of the Spirit in abundance. And Lord, today we thank you in advance for all the hearts that are going to be touched and all the lives that are going to be changed when we choose to be a source of blessing. And Lord, we give you all the honor, all the glory, and all the praise. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, if you want to be a source of blessings and have Jesus as a part of your life today, all you need to do is invite Jesus into your heart to be a personal Lord and Savior. You then need to repent of your sins and ask for his forgiveness. Then you trust that you've been forgiven and you ask for his free gift of eternal life. Now, if you've prayed this from a sincere heart and you truly meant it, then you are now a part of the family of God. Welcome to God's family. We want to thank everybody for listening today. We appreciate you taking out your time to spend with us. If you want even more of the King's Word, you can go to our YouTube page at Kingsword Ministry or visit our TikTok page at Kingsword Bible. God bless you. We want you to know that we love you all, and we'll see you next week as we continue to study the King's Word together.