Scripture references: Genesis 28:10 -16 (NKJV), Genesis 28:20-22 (NKJV), John 12:26 (NKJV), Genesis 29:26-28 (NKJV), Genesis 30:25-34, 43 (NKJV), Genesis 32:22-29 (NKJV), Genesis 49:22-24 (AMPC)
Praise Jesus. Glory to the name of the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. What a great and wonderful morning of worship we’ve had this morning, I want you to turn around to somebody and say I’m ready for the Word, and then you may be seated, and then turn around to two other people and say I’m ready for the Word. Glory to the Lord.
Every time you come to church it’s a good time to be in church, and no church service is the same as the last church service, and every time you come to church you should be coming with an expectancy that you will learn something new, you will receive something fresh, and that your life will change. Like I said yesterday. Your middle name should be John Change Bendixen, or whatever your name is. Because change is fundamental to the process of Christian growth. Hallelujah. And if you can’t change, then you can’t grow. Glory to the Lord. And so you know, if you want to stay comfortable, then you won’t grow. And if you want to stay comfortable then you won’t change, and then Comfort will become your middle name. So I don’t want to be known as John Comfortable Bendixen. I want to be known as John Fanatic Change Bendixen. You know, because I’m fanatic about change. Glory to Jesus. I really want to be more like my Heavenly Father, I want to be more like Jesus every day. Because everything that I am in this world I’m only here because He put breath in my mouth. I’m only here and living in this clay vessel, because He gave me the permission to be here. And He considered me in the all of the millennia of eternity. He conceived me in His Spirit, and He considered a clay vessel that would become a place where He could put me into. And so what else must I do knowing that He gave me a clay vessel, and He breathed His life into this vessel, which is me. And what else can I do but say I must become like Him. Hallelujah. It’s a lovely wonderful revelation to have that, you know.
I want to just start off by saying that, God willing, I’ll get finished with Jacob’s constellation today. I want to remind you that we started off reading Scriptures that Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things we cannot yet seen (Hebrews 11:1). And I want to remind you that when you choose to live, when you choose Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, whether you realize it or not, you have taken on the power of faith, and when you take on the power of faith you take on everything that is necessary to completely live by faith. There is nothing lacking in you to live by faith. There is no one that has made Jesus Lord and Saviour of their life that lacks anything to live by faith. The only thing you need to do to grow your faith, or to enhance your faith, or to make sure that your faith has the ability to endure, is you got to put the Word into your heart and let it grow up for endurance, you know. And whatever your circumstances are in life, whatever, they are subject to change. Everything is subject to change. So if you will use faith that God has given you, the God life given expression, whatever is in front of you can change. The only thing God will not interfere with, which I cannot interfere with, that God cannot interfere with, is the will of man. Every man has a choice to make for himself and so whatever your will is, that’s your business. The one thing that God can do, and the one thing we do is, we pray in the Holy Spirit, we intercede, we speak words by the Holy Spirit that would remove blindness and darkness from men, so that they will see the light and then make the right choice. That’s what we pray for. Hallelujah.
Yesterday, I got to talk quite a lot about the blessing of the Father, and I ended off the afternoon, speaking about fathers and the blessing of the source of life. It’s become a very real revelation to me, that Elisha had an irrational honour for his father, Elijah. Where there was no reason for him to even receive Elijah as his father. You know, when Elijah came up to him, he just threw his mantle on him. But over the course of life, Elisha so absorbed the spirit of Elijah that the only thing that he wanted when Elijah was ready to leave, was a double portion of his spirit. Not a double portion of his gift, not a double portion of his anointing, not a double portion of his prestige, his status. He wanted a double portion of his spirit. That is how, you can exercise yourself to love the Father like that, love the Heavenly Father like that, you know. And it’s a big thing for me that God has placed natural fathers in the earth that we can have a proper, in order relationship with. And you have to hear my message yesterday, I can’t go back and tell you everything I taught then, but you know, fathers are not one that give sons platforms. A father is a father because he’s most interested in developing his potential, you know. And a father does not command his sons, he releases his sons. He doesn’t lord over them; he doesn’t force them to do what he wants them to do. A father releases sons to do what they must do, creatively, expressing themselves.
And I said to you yesterday, that that’s what happened to Jesus. Jesus came from the Father. And when He was given all the authority and all of the ability to do whatever He wanted to do. He said, “I do nothing except I see what My Father does, I say nothing except what My Father says, everything you see Me do you see the Father do it.” And so it was the joy of the Son because of His honour for the Father to give back the honour to the Father that He would do nothing else other than what the Father said. And that’s a powerful relationship that cannot be conquered by any other force. There is nothing out there in the world that can conquer that force. It’s a very powerful relationship. And the devil tried to conquer that force with temptation, he tried to conquer that force through physical death. He put Jesus on the cross by the force of men and he said, “If I can take His clay body, I can separate Him from this powerful force of Son and Father.” And so he tried to take his life to separate the force of the Father and the Son. And it was the power of the Father that was with the Son that brought Him back from the dead, so even death could not hold and separate the force of the Son and the Father.
I don’t know if you know what I’m telling you now. And that’s a love relationship. It’s a love relationship, and you got to hear the messages from yesterday I can’t go back there, otherwise I won’t get to preach what I’m going to preach. I told you yesterday I’m not going to touch today on Laban syndrome, although the Laban syndrome is a part of what happened to Jacob. The Laban syndrome, it may be and I was praying about it in the anointing last night and early this morning, in my home. I said to Sharon and to Pastor Christi when I came in the back there, you know I was awake since 3 o’clock this morning, because the anointing of God was still so strong on me that actually my body couldn’t sleep anymore. The Holy Spirit was vibrating in my spirit and woke me, you know. And I woke up and I’ve been awake since 3 o’clock this morning, vibrating with the words and the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit in my spirit. Because whether you know this or not, when I stand here although, I am the messenger, that same anointing touches me, it impacts me, it changes my life too, you know. I might be the delivery boy, but His anointing changes me too. Praise the Lord.
And, well it may be and as I was with the Lord in the early hours of this morning, it may be that next Sunday I might preach on and teach on the Laban syndrome, you know. Because what we don’t want to do is, if we have an understanding who Laban was, we don’t want to be Laban, and you know there is a potential. So let me just say this as a blanket, if the Lord allows me next week. We all have the potential to function in the in the Pharisee spirit. All of us have the potential to operate in the spirit of a Pharisee. We also have the potential, all of us, to operate in the spirit of Laban, or have the spirit of Laban operate in us, and upon us, and around us.
And so when God has shown me that. In many things He shown me, and over the years I’ve watched and observed people operating in the Laban syndrome. I’ve watched people operate in the Akan spirit, the Ghazi spirit. I have watched people operate in the… And some of these terms are… I have discovered the one I’m going to use with you now is actually a theological concept that has come out. I didn’t know this until a week or so ago. That you can operate in a Simeon spirit, the spirit of Simeon, and that Simeon is the man who came to try and buy the power of the Apostles. And so there are people who want to try and buy the power of the anointing. They want to try and buy the power of the glory of God that is on you; that anointing, that blessing that favour that comes on you. They will try and buy it. They try and buy it and you know. In Simeon’s case he tried to buy it with money. In other people they try and buy it with all kinds of flattery, or service, or they try and get around you. So there’s many things that we can learn from people and the way they operated in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Bible says all Scripture is given to us for edification and for, what’s the word? Edification… exhortation and rebuke. Part of the, what we can learn is, if we get rebuked it’s not because, it’s for our betterment, because we don’t want to live in a wicked way, we want to live in a straight way. We don’t want to live in defect, we want to live in effect. And so you have to have been here yesterday to have known what I’m talking about. Defect rather than effect. And so we want to live in effectiveness not defectiveness, hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
And so that’s the thing. If we understand the Laban syndrome, and I only want to talk about the Laban syndrome, not all about those other things that I know about in the Bible, that I’ve learnt over years of being in ministry, and watching those spirits operate around me through people, and how those people have tried to take things from my ministry, and have tried to use my ministry to promote themselves, and to do different things. And the Lord has revealed these things to us by the Holy Spirit, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s called the discerning of spirits. Over the years, Pastor Sharon and I, have learned to observe, and see what’s going on. It takes time, and it takes your willingness to actually understand the discerning of spirits for you to be able to function there. Hallelujah!
So the Laban syndrome is important because it is always the thing that manifests itself around Jacobs’s constellation. So when the constellation of Jacob is about to happen, which is the Father’s blessing, the blessing of the future and the blessing of identity change, the Laban syndrome is there, and it’s waiting to show itself so that it can steal your blessing for itself. And so very quickly I’ll tell you. It took 20 years for Jacob to get free of the Laban syndrome. 20 years. And I want to tell you that this is directly in line, which is why I started to think maybe the Holy Spirit, I felt you know, the Holy Spirit maybe want me to minister on this next week, is that we’ve been in this church pastoring in this ministry now for 18 years, we are going on nearly 20 years. This October will be 19 years. And I believe that what we could not accomplish in 19 years, God is going to accomplish in one year. Because Jacob got free of the Laban syndrome in one year. One year. Hallelujah. Glory. I believe the Prophetic Word and so therefore I must act on the Prophetic Word.
So today I’m going to jump straight into the second blessing that Jacob received, which is the blessing of the future. So this blessing of the future refers to your assignment, and it gives you a direct connection to a divine partnership that exists between the man of clay and the man of eternity. It is a direct connection between the two.
So Genesis 28 verse 10. 10Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went towards Haran. 11So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. 12Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on this ladder. 13And behold, the LORD stood above it and said: “I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. (Genesis 28:10 -13 NKJV). I just want you to note. Who was his biological father? Isaac. How did God address him? He said to him, “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father.” So He was already addressing Jacob through the line of the eternal man, not the natural man. This was the eternal promise that was being revealed already because He called him the son of Abraham. Otherwise He would have said your grandfather, or your father’s father. 13 … and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15Behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” (Genesis 28:13-15 NKJV)
So this is very significant because Jacob is being blessed, so again I can’t go back, you’ve got to listen to these messages, he’s been blessed by his father. And the whole of the messages I’ve spoken over the last seven weeks comes into play, when we realize that Isaac was the clay man vessel, that he was speaking words out of his soul, that he had received words from his father, that God placed His anointing on those words to come out of the clay vessel, out of the soul of the man, and when those words came out of the man they were spoken to the clay vessel that was in front of him, but they were not only addressing his material future, they were also addressing his spiritual inheritance, and his eternal future. So Jacob had the blessing of his natural father, but God is the One Who empowers those words to come to pass.
This is a very significant thing that we are seeing happen here, because I have preached a message a long time ago, and I’ve referred to it many times, that God will always send a messenger with a message, and He will send you a messenger with a message that is designed for your deliverance and for your victory, for your abundance. In this case, and in the normal flow of God, there will be those messengers that will become your fathers, which is a different thing as I said yesterday, to a thousand teachers. Paul said, “You have many teachers, but not many fathers.” Can’t go back there. But the father came and blessed his son, but the Heavenly Father was the One that empowers the blessing.
So now you have Jacob who has had the blessing of the natural father, empowered with words that the Heavenly Father had spoken through Isaac. Now in a dream, the Heavenly Father is speaking directly to Jacob, and He is blessing Jacob directly with the same words that He blessed Abraham with. It was the same blessing that was imparted to Isaac through the three blessings that were given to Isaac. But God came to speak to Jacob specifically, because there was something about to happen with Jacob that was to change everything going forward. So God gave Abraham one legitimate son. God gave Isaac two legitimate sons. God was about to give Jacob ten legitimate sons. Yeah, He gave him ten. He adopted two from Joseph which became the twelve tribes. One, two, ten. 1, 2, 10. That is not a timetable I’m giving you. One year, two years, ten years. God will do in one year what would normally take ten years. Hallelujah. I mean that’s just a personal revelation for us for right now.
So but God was about to change things with Jacob that the momentum of the order of God was beginning to shift into the next gear. So Jacob could not have the mind-set that his dad had, you know, which was two sons. Yeah, I don’t want to go into the history of Isaac now, but let’s just say one, two, ten. It is important that when He speaks about his future He says, 15Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” (Genesis 28:15 NKJV). And this is the verse that I want to just hone in for a few minutes to say that when He got through blessing Jacob, He never just gave him the blessing of what the outcome was going to be, He said to him, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” In other words, wherever you go there is going to be a protection upon you that I will give you. I will always be there to protect you. He is establishing Himself as Jacob’s partner. There is a partnership that is developing that God is declaring between Him and Jacob. I will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. So it doesn’t matter where you’re going to or how long it takes, I will bring you back here. So God is already saying this decision you think is yours, and you think that you’re running away and you’re getting out of this land but it’s actually, I’m already on it that I will bring you back here. I will bring you back. He’s already saying, “Your future is not about your choices, I’m telling you that I will bring you back.”
So how did He do that with Jacob? Well because Jacob understood the blessing and the Covenant, the desire is what he would follow and God would lead him through the desire of his heart. 15For I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you (Genesis 28:15 NKJV). This is something that is very powerful because when you’re in the right place, at the right time, given an assignment that God gives you, then there is nothing that can stop you from fulfilling the assignment, because God makes you, His partner in life. As I said yesterday, if you choose to live in the body of Christ making choices for where you want to go, where you want to do, what you want to think, what you think about, you actually start amputation. And you live through amputating yourself from the body of Christ.
16Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” (Genesis 28:16 NKJV) Well you know, that is something that is common and I want to say to you, this is not something that is intimidating, or that I want you to think badly about Jacob, when you read this. What I want you to see is that, when Jacob went to sleep that night, he was just going to sleep. And it was God who orchestrated everything to meet Jacob in that place. And so when Jacob woke up, and he’s just making a statement of fact and he’s saying, “I went to sleep here and I didn’t know that God was in this place to meet me in this place.” And for us, that should be an encouragement, because at any time you could go to sleep. So to speak. You could be in a place where you rest your head, you rest your, you do something and you don’t know that God has chosen this moment and this place to actually change your future. Hallelujah. But you need to understand that it starts with a blessing of the fathers. When you have the blessing of the Father you may begin a journey because of the blessing of the Father that introduces you to a journey where the life assignment is given to you. And when God gives you the life assignment because you’re in the right place, at the right time that God has orchestrated for you to be, He makes Himself partner with you and there is no way that you cannot fulfil what God has called you to do. Hallelujah.
That’s why, you know, when in my, in my 20 years of relationship with Brother Jerry, I’ve said this to you a few times, if you think 20 years of relationship, there are not things that he did, that I did in the relationship that could have caused us to split from each other forever, then you are mistaken. You know, there are decisions that he made, there are decisions that I made, there are things that happened in our relationship over 20 years, that the enemy would have used that to try and split us up. Like Brother Jerry says, it took his maturity and my maturity to make it stick. And in this process, you know, other wonderful teachers of the Word of God, other men came into my life and they wanted me to go and be part of their global Apostolic Ministry. So in my understanding of the order of divine assignment, divine alignment and divine connection, my question was, “Well, so if someone gives me a command who do I obey?” So if Brother Jerry gives me a command, or you give me a command, which command on do I obey? I mean I made it as plain as that. And he said, “Well you obey my command.” I said, “Sorry I can’t actually work with you.” And he said, “But why not you? You and I get on so well.” I said, “Because God didn’t call me to you, God called me to Brother Jerry. Until he tells me differently this is my father.” That was a strategy that was sent to me to separate me from this. I will be with you and I will bring you back to this place and this will always happen until I have fulfilled what I have spoken. Hallelujah.
Verse 20 says, 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, (Genesis 28:20 NKJV). I mean come on now, you understand Jacob is running away from all of the wealth of Abraham and Isaac. He’s got nothing with him. He fled with nothing, because he was afraid of Esau. And so his focus and that moment is God if, He is just going to feed me and keep me clothed, okay. What do you think God was talking about? He was talking about the same kind of wealth that his father had. And not just father Isaac, but father Abraham. He was talking about the same wealth. But Jacob in his own mentality can’t see past his immediate circumstances and he says, if God can just keep me fed and clothed and He will be with me in this way. 21so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, that’s a good heart, then the Lord shall be my God (Genesis 28:21 NKJV). So why did he even chase the blessing if he was uncertain about the Lord being his God? You understand, that because of the way Jacob received the blessing he was uncertain of whether he could keep the blessing. So he was making a reference to God in his humanity saying, “I received this blessing because I deceived my father.” But it seems to me like God is actually in on this whole deal. So if He’s in on this deal then I’m going to be okay in my future and I will make Him my Lord. So there’s a difference in being God saying I’m your God, and now Jacob saying, You are my God. And that’s an important decision that all of us have to get to when it comes to the blessing of the future, is that it can’t be just He’s my God. You got to get to the point where God says, “I am your Savior.” You’ve got to get to the point is, “I receive You as my Lord.” And when you receive Jesus as your Lord and you receive God as your Father, then you must receive the blessing that comes with it.
And as I said yesterday. You know the thing about why God gave me Jacob’s constellation, is that we go from the blessing of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, straight to the New Testament blessing of Jesus, and we bypass and skip all the law. So the blessing of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had nothing to do with the law. It doesn’t have to be based on the law, it has nothing to do with anything that surrounds the law, or the life and death of the law. It goes straight to Jesus by Abraham’s seed through Christ. That is the benefit of the Gentiles. The disadvantage of the Jews, is that they must go through all of that law to get to Jesus, not any more but… And then he says, Then the Lord shall be my God. 22 And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.” (Genesis 28:21-22) Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek, Jacob in his moment of God’s blessing he makes a vow, “Everything I earn, I’ll give a tenth to You.” If you can find any Mosaic law here, then you are just weird, because Moses wasn’t even born yet, and neither was any of the law written yet. Neither was there anything about this that they had any reference to.
How is it, that both Abraham and Jacob gave a tenth? Because God put it in their heart that this is the way you connect your covenant to Me. There is no way you can bring any law arguments into this. You know when people have got all kinds of theological debates and all kinds of things, you know, well Abraham did it, and Jacob did it, and you know so. What’s the problem? And in the big book of Hebrews, the writer in the book of Hebrews talks about Melchizedek, and how on earth men received tithes, but in heaven God received tithes. So there is a witness of at least three that is outside of the law that will make sure that tithing is a thing of the heart, it’s a thing of faith, it is not a thing of law.
I can tell you where your heart is with God by whether you tithe or you don’t. Straight up and down. If you don’t believe in tithing, then your whole walk with God is in unbelief. You may have received Him as Jesus, you may have received Him as Savior and Messiah, you may have received Him as the Redeemer in your live, but if you’re not a tither then you are an unbeliever. Strong words Pastor John, yeah, but it’s the way it is. I can tell what you do with where your heart is. Because the Bible says, where your treasure is there will your heart be also. So don’t build up for yourself treasure on earth where moth and rust can come in and corrupt it and steal it, and man can steal it, but build up for yourself treasure in heaven where you cannot be, none of that treasure can be corrupted. And then that passage in Matthew goes on to speak, and so you cannot serve two masters. You must serve one or the other. You got to serve money or God. So the way I know where your heart is with God, whether you’re a believer as opposed to a Christian. Whether you’re a believer is what you do with your money. Nou praat jy goed jong.
So he does two things. He builds the first church of the Jacobites, he builds an altar, I don’t know how he did it, he probably put some water together with some mud and he set the stone in the mud and so he built the foundation of the first Church of the Jacobites, You know, and he said, “Here is my first encounter with God, so here is the first church of the Jacobites. And I made, and this is just a memorial of where I’ve encountered God and where He blessed me and where He gave me my future and He gave me my assignment and He made Himself a partner with me. And I now made a commitment that I am a partner with Him. And I partner with Him as a tenth of everything that I earn and I am building my first church of the Jacobites.”
In other words, he was building a temple to God and so I, my translation to you is your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, give it to Him as the first church of the Ebenites, and the Bertusites, and the Gideonites, and the Loutjienites (laughter). You know, give your body as a temple to the Holy Spirit and say, “Because You have blessed me and because You have given me a future, because You have given me assignment, I give my body as a dedication and an assignment to partner with You as You have partnered with me through the death and the resurrection with Jesus. And I give you my body and I give you my tenth”.
Don’t you want to live life, you know I’ve read to you yesterday, many of you weren’t here but, I read to yesterday the thing that my dad was murdered on the 13th of August and so on the 15th of August this year, I felt to write a sense of eulogy to him. It was just the Holy Spirit inspired and I put it on Facebook, because a lot of people that are communicating or are people that are from, that know my dad from many years ago, and the live all around the world. You know of course on the date of his death, anniversary of his death there are all kinds of words that get spoken. And so the Holy Spirit inspired me to speak my own words you know. And in one of the words that I spoke there, I wrote a letter to my dad. And one of the things I said was I’ll see you in a vapour. I’ll see you in a vapour. Because the Bible talks about our life on earth just being like a vapour. We are here today and we’re gone tomorrow. The important thing is whether your vapour counts. You know, and you may…
Listen when you’re 25, 16, 25, 35, you don’t even think you are more, you know you’re invincible. Listen, I’m 58 and I think I’m still invincible. But I recognize some changes in my body that have happen from when I was 28. You know, if you put me on a soccer field and I had to try and run around with some young lads, I just couldn’t do it anymore. My body is changed. My vapour has an expiry date. And I am 58 and I’m looking back and I’m thinking… Wow a lifetime is already gone passed. My lifetime, 58, I mean I still got a good many years left and I’m going to make the most of them you know. But isn’t it a wonderful thing if we can die knowing that we had assignment and we’ve accomplished assignment and partnership with God. So let me tell you, I don’t want to leave you hanging here.
There is a parable that Jesus talks in the Bible where He goes in the morning to the market place to go and find men workers. And He comes to agreement with them that he will pay them a wage of one denarii for the day’s work. And so he says, “These workers come work with me and they come and work and work the whole day long for one denarii.” At lunch time he goes and he fetches some more workers. And he comes to an agreement with them that he will pay them same wage. Then the last hour of the light of the day he goes back to the square and he finds more workers and he pays them one denarii. And the guys that worked all day they get very upset with the guy who employed them and say, “You paid those guys who only worked one hour the same as you paid us and we worked for the whole day.” And he said, “Does I, did I contract was our contract the one that you’ve accept it or didn’t you accept it?” And so he says, ‘No, we accepted it.” So he said, “So what is your complaint?”
So to me this is the way God speaks to me and He is saying to me, “It doesn’t matter whether you find your assignment in the first hour, or the six hour or the eleven hour. It happens that you find your assignment and you live your last days in your assignment. The difference though is, if you can live 12 hours in your assignment, you can be very productive in your natural life that matters in eternity. That’s why when God encounters Jacob the blessing of the future is directly connected to his assignment. He said, “I will be with you, I will protect you, I’m going to bless you and I will bring you back to this land and I will not stop until I’ve done everything that I’ve just said to you is going to happen.” If you don’t think God has got a plan and an assignment and a whole purpose and every step for you to follow an ancient path as I’ve preached before, for you to walk on, then I don’t know what more teaching I can do to convince you. Just agree with me and say, “You’re preaching well Pastor John.”
You are blessed. I’m telling you, you are blessed because you have a Pastor who has got this revelation and you have a Pastor that is connected to people who have this revelation. And we have stood strong together in our unity both Brother Jerry and I. We have stood strong and mature in our love to say we will not let anything separate us from each other, because our assignment is called together.
There are many many many many many many thousands of people that are going to church today and they’re getting a good inspirational message and they’ll walked out of church and they feeling good and when they feel bad they’re going to leave that church. When something offends them in the church they’re going to leave that church. When something happens that they don’t like they are going to leave that church. And they have no clue about life assignment and life purpose and actually divine connections and divine alignment. And they live their lives running around trying to catch their tails. Wasting their energy. Praise the Lord.
So I got to get to the next and final blessing. So Jacob, he arrives at Laban’s house and he sees this beautiful woman, and her name is Rachel, and he looks in her big beautiful eyes and he says, “Rachel, oh Rachel my Rachel” (laughter) and Rachel’s eyes captivate him, and he is like, this is the bird for me you know. This is like my chick Rachel oh Rachel. What must I do oh Rachel to get you to be my wife? She says. “You must negotiate with my dad”. “Really?” “Yes because his name is Laban.” Uh ha
So we’ll get maybe to Laban next week. So he goes to Laban and he says, “Laban, I think your girl, your daughter Rachel, she is the most sexy, beautiful, stunning, amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” You understand I’ve been living with camels and goats most of my time, I’ve never seen any eyes like these eyes. (Laughter) Camels and goats. Rachel my Rachel. And so Laban he says, “Okay, you can have my daughter, but you got to work for me for 7 years.” So, okay I’m not going to allow myself to go on Laban syndrome. They’ve come to an arrangement, 7 years. They have a wedding party and he wakes up the next morning having consummated with Rachel, except he didn’t look in her eyes. Because you know he wakes up next to another woman, that’s not Rachel. (To congregation member). Your daughter is very surprised (laughter) I saw her face she looked at me like. “How can that be?” (Laughter) It was so cute.
He wakes up next to another woman. And so Laban deceived him and he said, “How come I slept with your eldest daughter and not Rachel oh Rachel?” He said, “Well I can’t allow another daughter to get married until my first daughter is married.” Uh let me tell you something, this is all the reasoning of the world that comes in here that wants to tell you how to run your life, not how your blessing is supposed to command your life. Anyway I don’t want to get there. I want to tell you he says, “So what must I do to get Rachel? Because I’ve looked in Rachel’s eyes. This girl doesn’t do it for me. She doesn’t have eyes like Rachel.” He says, “All right I tell you what, if you’ll give me another 7 years, you can have Rachel.” And just like that his love for Rachel says, I can’t live without this girl. So he says, “You can have another 7 years.” He’s just negotiated 14 years of his life for 2 women. (Laughter) My son says, “Dear Lord.”
So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed like only a few days to him because of the love he had for her. Then Jacob said to Laban give me my wife for my days are fulfilled that I may go into her. 26And Laban said, “It must… in verse 26 Laban said, “It must be not so in our country, to give you the younger before the firstborn. 27Fulfill her week, and we will give you this one also for the service which you will serve with me still another seven years.” 28Then Jacob did so and fulfilled her week. So he gave him his daughter Rachel as wife also. (Genesis 29:26-28 NKJV)
Ok, so now he is working, and the first girl that he married she starts to have children, and Rachel has no children. So there is this whole thing that is happening between the girls. Now the one girl knows she’s loved, and the other girl thinks she isn’t loved, but she is the one having children and blessing Jacob with sons. And the other girl feels like she’s on the outside because she’s not having children. Anyway, ends up Jacob has lots of children with both girls. Okay, let’s just leave it there. I don’t want to talk about Laban, and the syndrome of Laban today that causes barrenness. I’ve got to think; I think I want to talk about Laban’s syndrome. Yeah Lord, if You will permit me. But then you’ve got to be ready for it yeah? Ja, the Laban syndrome offers you things that will be productive, but none of it can be as productive as the one that God has destined for you. It causes barrenness. Anyway. Next week maybe. If the Lord will be gracious.
So if we go to verse 26. Let’s read from Genesis 30:25. 25 And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, Who Rachel? Hello now, come on now. Rachel borne Joseph. When I’m in the Laban’s syndrome I’ll tell you how God defeats the Laban syndrome in your life if you recognize the blessing. So, Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, I mean this is so significant and I haven’t got this much time to speak on it today, but when Jacob borne Joseph, who was Joseph going to be to Jacob? Joseph was going to be the man that was placed in slavery that was going to have the hardest of times in his life that there would be Psalms written about him, that even Jacob speaks about him, that Joseph was a strong bow, that had many attacks against him in his life. But Joseph was the man that was going to end up in the world in Egypt, and Joseph was the one who’s going to become the redeemer of Jacob. So when Rachel who was his covenant bride was the one who borne Joseph who was going to be the redeemer that redemption factor was released in Jacob’s life, after 20 years of service and he says to Laban “Send me away, that I may go to my own place and to my country.” (Genesis 30:25 NKJV). What is happening inside of him? The redeemer in his world has been born, a constellation has happened of the assemblage of important events, and important people had come together. It was now Rachel who had borne Joseph in a time frame that God said, now that Joseph is born, I will place the desire in your heart to be free of the Laban syndrome, hallelujah. He says, 26Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know my service which I have done for you.” 27And Laban said to him, “Please stay, I have found favor in your eyes, for I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake.” (Genesis 30:25, 26, 27 NKJV).
Laban knows where the blessing is, and Laban will stay where the blessing is, as long as he can stay where the blessing is. But God has got a plan to remove the Laban syndrome out of Jacob’s life. 28Then he said, “Name me your wages, and I will give it.” Says Laban to him. 29So Jacob said to him, “You know I have served you and how your livestock has been with me. 30For what you had before I came was little, come on now, “What you had before I came was little, and it has increased to a great amount; the Lord has blessed you since my coming. And now, when shall I also provide for my own house?” 31So he said, “What shall I give you?” And Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this thing for me, I will again keep feed and keep your flocks: (Genesis 30:28-31 NKJV) So now, Jacob is under this blessing. He’s got God’s anointing to be free from the Laban syndrome. I have to remind you, he made a vow to God. His vow was, I’ll build the first church of the Jacobites, and I’ll give you a tenth. So, when he made a vow, that means if you, if you give somebody a vow it means that it’s already done. You can’t go back on a vow. You read the consequences in the Old Testament under the Mosaic Law and the Levitical Law; you go and read back, under those conditions what happens if you go back on your vow. So when he gave a vow, let me tell you, this was as good as done.
There’s a problem for Jacob that reveals itself later. The only problem that existed for Jacob why he hadn’t released the tenth of what he was already earning, is because he had no priest to give it to. He had no father to give it to. Laban was not his father; Laban was an employer.
And so I’ve, you know, no I’ll talk about that on the Laban syndrome. But I got to talk about people who do business and then they take their profit in their business, and they invest it back in their business rather than giving some of their profit to God, out of the condition of their heart. They say that it’s more important for me to recognize my employer of clay, than to recognize the God of the blessing. So they justify the keeping of their money, because of reinvestment into their business rather than giving of their money out of their profit. Notice, I didn’t say out of their turnover, and so you know whenever I’ve preached this and people hear this, then they say, well I can make sure that I have no profit, and part of the way they have no profit is the reinvestment strategy. Well, that’s between you and God. There is no law about this. I believe tithing is not about the law it’s about faith, and it’s about your heart before God.
Okay, so he says “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this thing for me, I will again keep feed and keep your flocks: 32Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from there all the speckled and spotted sheep, and the brown ones among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and these shall be my wages. 33So my righteousness will answer for me in time to come, when the subject of my wages comes before you: everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and the brown among the lambs, will be considered stolen, if it is with me”. 34And Laban said, “Oh, that it were according to your word!” (Genesis 30:32-34 NKJV)
In other words, Jacob has got to this Jewish anointing on him right now. The great God anointing upon him, to cut a deal that Laban thinks there is no way that Jacob is going to get rich on this deal, but he’s also setting up the deal so that no one can ever question the issue of whether this goat, or this sheep, or this camel belongs to Jacob or whether it belongs to Laban. He makes a clear distinction. The plain ones belong to you, the speckled and spotted ones belong to me. So there can never ever be a question whether a plain one is that one, the one that you own, you know, he said, let’s just make it like so. So everybody was looking for the pureness of the deal. Jacob said I’m just looking for the deal, I’ll let God decide. Anyway, 35So he removed that day the male goats that were speckled and spotted, all the female goats, (Genesis 30:35 NKJV) and I’m going to cut this short, because if the Lord permits me to talk next week about Laban, this will be about your prosperity and your wealth. Because the Laban syndrome is directly connected to your prosperity and your wealth, and if you’re living under Laban syndrome, you got to have a strategy to get out of from living under the Laban syndrome, hallelujah.
So, 37Now Jacob took for himself rods of green poplar, and the almond and the chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them, and exposed the white (Genesis 30:37 NKJV)and so he puts it into the drinking water and so they came and they reproduced. And verse 43, 43Thus the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks, female and male servants, and camels and donkeys. (Genesis 30:43 NKJV). Wow, what happened? What happened? Blessing. Blessing. He went from being an employee to being a business owner that was so wealthy that he had servants that were actually needing to help him to tend his wealth.
So, now I get to identity change. O my goodness. We worshipped too long this morning. So you need to give me an extra 10 minutes or so, so I can get this done. Is that okay? I don’t want to say we worshipped too long. We worshipped long. Hallelujah.
So, there is a conflict that now arises, and it’s all about the sons of Laban accusing Jacob, that Jacob is stealing their father’s wealth, which means their wealth in inheritance. So Jacob has a conversation with Rachel, and says, “O Rachel, my Rachel, it’s time to leave your father, it’s time to go somewhere else.” Verse 22 of Chapter 32. 22He arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, that he had and crossed over the ford at Jabbok. 23He took them, and sent them over the brook, (Genesis 32:22,23 NKJV) and you will see later the 10 sons becomes the ten tribes of Israel and then two tribes, so I was making reverence to that earlier. There’s a whole story to unfold here, I’m not going into that. So, now when he, when he 24Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. 25Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip (Genesis 32:24, 25 NKJV) So if you remember yesterday, when I was talking about fathers, I was talking about a father is hip bone to hip bone. I can’t go back and teach what I taught yesterday, but a father is hip bone to hip bone. So the father and son . . . Just stand up Brynn and come and join me here, stand together like this, hip bone to hip bone. So when I was talking about fathers yesterday, I was talking about that there is such a close relationship that as you walk through life, this is where hip bone rubs against hip bone. There can be no disjointedness. There can be no separation, and so the father has an indication about your strengths and weaknesses are my strengths and weaknesses, and my strengths and weakness are your strengths and weaknesses. That is the relationship of a father and a son, and so I was talking about spiritual fathers, yesterday. And I was talking about that and I get to this point. So, he was wrestling with this Spirit Father that was wrestling with him. The Spirit being which everybody theologically recognizes that it’s Jesus or an angel of Jesus, but everybody recognizes or would say that it’s Jesus. So, “. . . a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. 25Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him.” (Genesis 32:24-25 NKJV) This again gives this, this thing of intimacy. You come to me and you spend your spiritual energy in my presence, I am not letting you go and I am going to keep you and wrestle with you, 26And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go, unless You bless me!” (Genesis 32:26 NKJV) Why does he want another blessing? He has already demonstrated that this blessing of the father works. The blessing that God met with him where he started, the first church of the Jacobites, that blessing has already worked. He’s got all this wealth with him. Why does he want another blessing? Because he is at a crossover point in his life, and the crossover point is he is making his way back to his country where he is going to confront Esau, and he is going to confront all of the stuff that he did to get the blessing. “And he said, 27So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” 28And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask me My name?” And He blessed him there.” (Genesis 32:27-29 NKJV). Why did He not give him His name? The reason He couldn’t give him His Name was that the Name of the person that was with him or the being that was with him was “I am”. What would have happened to Jacob, if He had said, “My name is I am?” Death, because how can you wrestle with God, knowing it’s God and live. And so the grace of God covered him and said, “I cannot tell you My name, because if I speak who I am, then everything I am comes into this place right now, and everything that I am, your body couldn’t handle it, because I’ve only brought a part of who I am, not all of what I am, what I’ve come is I’ve brought the part that is changing your identity, and only that part is the part I’m giving to you. Your identity changes today. I’m not giving you all of who I am, I’m only giving part of what I am. So, if you ask Me My Name I’ve got to give you all of who I am and you can’t handle all of who I am, so I’m only giving you what I am that you can handle, and that is right now you have an identity change.
When you get born again and you receive Jesus as your Lord and Saviour you have an identity change. Don’t you? Old things have passed away behold all things have become new. You become a new creature in Christ Jesus, but all of who God is, although He lives in you is not all of what you can live out, because you cannot live out all of what I am is, until there is a transformation that happens, and that transformation that happens in life is in the wrestling with God.
And when you wrestle with God the time comes when He says, “Now I’m not only change you from the inside, but I’m going to change the way that you speak about yourself. Because now you’re not only going to speak about yourself, as Jacob the man of clay, you’re going speak about yourself as the Son of God, the Son of God that has victory, and is a kingdom man, and is a powerful speaking spirit man that can have anything he can ask of the Father and I will grant it to you, if you will just believe Who I am. You become that man, when you begin to say, I have all of who You are. You can’t be all of that man, when you become saved. You become that man when you’re transformed into that man, when you wrestle with God’s Word in your life and you say, and the Word of God comes to you and it says, like He would come to me and say, “Hey listen, you can’t live life without faith, you got to live life in faith.” How do you get faith? You got to speak the Word of God. When that Word comes to you, you got to wrestle with that Word, in every circumstance in your life. So, when you find yourself in a political moment, when you find yourself in a compromising moment, when you find yourself in a potential future moment, when you find yourself in a moment where there’s all kinds of possibilities, all kinds of things happening, you have to wrestle with your ideas, with your mind, with your heart, with your body and you got to say, “I wrestle with God and hip to hip, I’m going to make this decision that my future is about my new name, not about my old name. I do not receive my future based on my old name, which is deceiver and supplanter. I received my new name, which is the future of generations and multiple, many, many thousands of people to come. A whole new identity of who I am comes into play,” Hallelujah.
I want to finish off by just reading Genesis chapter 49, verse 22. 22Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well (spring or fountain), whose branches run over the wall. 23Skilled archers have bitterly attacked and sorely worried him; they have shot at him and persecuted him. (Genesis 49:22, 23 AMPC) When did Jacob decide to leave Laban? When Joseph was born. I’m just telling you that, when Jacob received his identity change, his identity change as Israel, ignited the redeemer who was Joseph. 22Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well (spring or fountain), whose branches run over the wall. 23Skilled archers have bitterly attacked and sorely worried him; they have shot at him and persecuted him. 24But his bow remained strong and steady and rested in the Strength that does not fail him, for the arms of his hands were made strong and active by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob, by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, (Genesis 49:22-24 AMPC) What did Jacob’s name become? What is the thing that sustained Joseph? Israel! His identity change ignited his future redemption. In the redemption of all of his seed, in a time of famine and in a time of persecution, Joseph was the man who stood between, a possible annihilation and the development of a nation, hallelujah. 25By the God of your father, Who will help you, and by the Almighty, Who will bless you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings lying in the deep beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. 26The blessings of your father [on you] are greater than the blessings of my forefathers [Abraham and Isaac on me] and are as lasting as the bounties of the eternal hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was the consecrated one and the one separated from his brethren and [the one who] is prince among them. (Genesis 49:25-26 AMPC) Why is he blessing Joseph like this? Because Jacob understood that it was when Joseph was born, he was released from Laban. And it was Joseph that was born, the redeemer into his life that caused him to have an identity change that allowed him to confront his past, in Esau.
I’m out of time, but this message I trust, Jacob’s constellation, which finds its end in the redemption that Joseph brings to all of the sons of Jacob. And it finds its end in the blessing of Jacob, over two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, in Joseph. He adopts them as his sons and they become the twelve tribes of Israel. You find that the blessing of the firstborn does not go to Reuben, but the strength of the blessing of the firstborn goes to Judah. Who is the tribe that was the tribe that brought Jesus into the earth? It was the tribe of Judah, because once again God bypassed the firstborn and gave the birth right to another, whose heart would be for Him, not whose strength was for himself. So, I could still preach for hours on this, but I have sensed in my heart, I’ve sensed by the Holy Spirit that my time for preaching about Jacob’s constellation has come to an end.
I just say to you, that in all of our lives, as I said yesterday, and you got to go back to yesterday. Abraham had three blessings, Isaac had three blessings, Jacob had three blessings, and we have three blessings. Our blessings are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, hallelujah. Jacob’s blessing was blessing of the Father, the blessing of the future, and the blessing of identity change. Through Jacob all of those blessings belong to us. We have through our Heavenly Father the blessing of the Father that is given to us through the blessing of the future, which is Jesus and He has given to us the blessing of identity change, which is the Holy Spirit, who leads you into all truth. I gave you that yesterday and I close with that today. As we stand, we have the blessing of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, those three. And each of them had three blessings and they all belonged to us too, through the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We have the blessing of the Father, we have the blessing of the future in Jesus and we have the blessing of identity change, as the Holy Spirit leads us into revelation knowledge of what we are released from and what we are living into.
So, I conclude, finally, with this, you know, that Jacob’s Constellation, and I said this right in the beginning. I said this, right in the beginning that the Lord had me preach this in 2010, because I realized that something was happening spiritually, and I prophesied in 2010, and God had me give a prophecy about shift and change in 2010. When I had this revelation of Jacob’s Constellation, I said this revelation is not for next week, next month, three months, six months. It’s a generational message and it’s going to inspire us and ignite us and it’s going to set a course for us, for decades. So, strong was this revelation in me, that the following year, Pastor Sharon and I went to go and address Brother Jerry, in the UK and asked him to bless us, as our father. Then asked him, to ask Brother Copeland together with him, as he, as two fathers to bless us, as natural clay fathers that represent the Spirit Realm. Hallelujah.
This is an important thing, that we must seek, the blessing of our Heavenly Father. We must seek, our future in Jesus, in the Word and we must seek our identity change, through the revealing of the Holy Spirit, day by day, day by day, day by day. Hallelujah.
We will have victories and we will have abundance, that are beyond our human, natural comprehension, because just like Jacob had to work for Laban, but God released him, through one year, two cycles of giving birth of lambs. God made him so wealthy, that he was wealthier than Laban in one year, for 20 years of service.
Hallelujah, but this kind of thing doesn’t happen, if you just operate in natural clay mentality. This thing happens, when you understand the blessing factor. This thing happens when you understand, that there is a father’s blessing, a future blessing and an identity change blessing, then you can walk in the fullness of it. Do you want to walk in the fullness of it? Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Stand with me, will you please? Glory to God. I’m going to close the service today, by saying, if you’re here today and you’ve never made Jesus, Lord and Savior of your life, please come and talk to us, up at the front here, after the service and we will pray a prayer with you, that will either lead you to Jesus or will allow you to rededicate your life to Jesus. This is the first starting point that you have to have. The second thing that I want to do is lead you in a prayer and I would like you to make this declaration with me, if you will please. Are you ready?
We come to you Father, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, because of Jesus and we declare, that we receive our Heavenly Father’s blessing, the blessing that You placed on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That we will increase, we will multiply, we will be fruitful, and we will abound. We also receive Father, the blessing of our future through Jesus that we are not the same person, as when we were born, but we are changed and have a future that is sure and secure because of our partnership with You, through the blood of Jesus. And Father, we receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit, that day by day, we receive identity change, through the Holy Spirit who leads us into all Truth, in Jesus Name. If you agree with that, you may say, Amen.
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Before you leave today, I want you to tell at least three people and five people would be better, that you are living in the blessing factor. Will you tell them that before you go? You are living a blessed life. You’re living in the blessing factor. God bless you.
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