The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. Isaiah 9:8. This verse follows the well-known prophecy, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this. Isaiah 9:6–7.
In Psalm 147:19 we read, He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. What is the difference between the names Jacob and Israel used in these passages? Genesis 32 gives the account of Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord. It was the Lord Himself who actually prevailed over him and asked what his name was. The Lord said, “You are not going to be called Jacob any longer, but Israel. As a prince of God you have prevailed with God and man” (Genesis 32:27–28). The angel smote Jacob in his thigh, and as a result he limped until the day he died. (For that reason, the Israelites would not eat the meat on the socket of an animal’s hip, in remembrance of the crippling effect upon Jacob when the angel of the Lord prevailed against him.)
A great truth is revealed in the difference between the names Jacob and Israel. Israel, meaning “a prince of God,” was the name God gave him. Jacob, his name in the natural, meant “supplanter”—in other words, a con artist. He was always conniving to receive a blessing. By covering his arms with the hairy skin of a kid, he deceived his father and received the blessing that his brother would otherwise have had. Although it was allowed by God and was in God’s will for Jacob to have that blessing, we cannot admire Jacob’s way of doing things. On one occasion he told God that if He would take care of his needs and watch over him, he would give Him ten percent in return (Genesis 28:20–22). It is good to be a tither, but Jacob’s motive was wrong. He was doing it for his own advantage—not as a pure gift to the Lord.
Because of a certain quality in Jacob, his employer, Laban, was never able to trust him, though Laban also was guilty of his own kind of conniving. After Jacob had labored seven years for Rachel, Laban deceived him by giving him her sister. Jacob worked seven more years for Rachel, and in the years that followed, his wages were often changed, always to Laban’s advantage. Jacob knew how to bring prenatal markings to the lambs born to the flock that was designated as his property. Jacob was a crook, the kind of man who would lie, cheat, and steal to get the Lord’s blessing, believing that the end justified the means. However, Israel was a man who had come to the end of himself, a man who had prevailed with God.
This is a picture that applies to the believer today, too. In this day, the Word of the Lord comes to God’s people as it came to Jacob of old, and it is important to remember that the Word will be fulfilled when they become Israels, when they enter in and prevail with God. God’s moving in the earth today was prophesied, and many people will participate in it in a limited measure. A man’s spirit is prepared by wounds and grievous dealings of the Lord; and some wounds never heal. This is what Paul meant when he said, Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. Galatians 6:17. If God has done that, then He will fulfill the word, “He sends His Word to Jacob, but it lights upon Israel.”
Israel is a cripple, a true prince of God. Everyone who walks as a prince of God is crippled, limping before the Lord. They have wrestled with the Lord, and He has knocked them out of joint and loosed them from every basis of their own glory, their own human strength and natural ability. He has brought them up to the place where they can only cling to the Lord and say, “I won’t let You go, Lord. I won’t let You go until You bless me.”
He sends His Word to you, and many times you are still a Jacob when the Word comes. However, it is going to light upon you when you become that prevailing Israel of God, when you have been changed and transformed by the dealings of God upon your life. There are some things in a walk with God that cannot be explained: circumstances that befall you from day to day, the ventures God places you in that cripple you, the many things that God orders you to do which do not seem to come out right. Finally you know that you have a Word from God, and you become dedicated to failure by the world’s standard, just to be and to do what God says you are to be and to do. You have not suffered and endured the dealings of the Lord in vain. The Word coming now is not coming to Jacobs. It is not something you will have to struggle with for years. God has been dealing with your heart. The dealings of the Lord have crippled your natural ambitions and execution of things. Now you are the Lord’s prince.
Whenever you read the Gospel of John, it is easy to see the obvious meaning in a passage and miss the real heart of truth just under the surface. The Lord told Peter, “When you are old, another will gird you and take you where you would not.” The Bible says that this referred to the manner of death he should die. Does this mean they were going to put clothes on him and take him out and kill him? No, though according to tradition, Peter was crucified upside down. This passage speaks of a spiritual crucifixion that Peter would have to experience, a dying-out to his own inclinations and much of his own independence, where he would be clothed and ministered to by another, and would follow the will of another, rather than his own will and his own initiative.
The Bible was written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit with the dual purpose of revealing and concealing the acts of God. Only the spiritual will be able to discern His ways when they read it. It is one thing to casually read how the Lord fed the multitudes by breaking the barley loaves and fish, and then exclaim, “My, that was a beautiful trick.” But it is another thing to know how He did it. We are amazed when we read the stories of Elijah and Elisha and the miracles they performed. We read how Elisha stretched himself over a dead child; then the boy sneezed seven times and became alive. How did it work? The Bible does not tell you. Superficial reading will only tell you that it happened. Basically, the Bible was not written to reveal, nor was the purpose of Christ’s ministry to reveal. In the wisdom of God, it was to cleverly conceal the truth from those who were unprepared to receive it.
Jesus said, I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. John 16:12. Paul said, I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able to bear it: nay, not even now are ye able. I Corinthians 3:2. Hebrews 5:12 tells us, For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have…come to need milk…. Why? Because the babes are inexperienced in the Word.
The mark of difference between a babe in Christ and a mature person, according to the book of Hebrews, is that the babe is inexperienced in the Word. Does that mean he does not know much about the Bible? No, it means he is inexperienced in speaking the Word of the Lord. The babe continues glorifying God, witnessing and giving testimonies, whereas the mature man speaks the Word of the Lord. God is going to bring a remnant into maturity, to the place where people will receive an anointing that comes by a Word from the Lord—not a Word to wrestle with for days and years, but a Word to walk in. It will light upon Israel; and with it will come a new understanding of the Scriptures.
You can read the acts of the Lord and the words of the Lord; but if you look carefully, you will find concealed therein the ways and secrets of the Lord. Now is the time that those secrets are to be revealed to God’s end-time remnant. As the seals are taken from the Book, the remnant will not read the Scriptures superficially, but with an understanding of the Word and of the ways of the Lord. The depth and the power of the living Word is known only to true disciples, not to shallow believers. What God is doing in the earth, the way that the signs, the wonders, and the exploits are to be done, will be revealed to His servants, the prophets (Amos 3:7).
Jesus said, “The works that I do shall ye do also; and greater works than these shall ye do; because I go to My Father” (John 14:12). What are the greater works? How can we do a work greater than raising a man from the dead? We do not yet know what the greater works are, but God has promised that He will start unfolding to us what they are and the ways in which they are to be performed. In recent years there has been an unfolding of truth, and now we are coming to understand the ways of the Lord; this will rapidly increase. In these days God is giving signs. They are not understood until the Lord causes His Word to begin to open; they are not for the Jacobs. Jacob can see and feel the signs, but Israel understands them. The signs came in great profusion to the children of Israel as they wandered through the wilderness, but only Moses knew what they meant and how the miracles were done. Only Moses realized that he was prophesying about the Christ when he said, “Another prophet like unto me the Lord will raise up from among your brethren; him you shall hear in all things” (Deuteronomy 18:15). Moses knew how to use his rod; he knew which rock to strike to bring forth water. The water from that rock followed them in the wilderness. That must have been an amazing thing to see; but how much more amazing to know how it was done.
We want the exploits, not for a show for people to see, but for God to make known His Word until people will come to walk with the Lord. We want to see the unveiling of the presence of the Lord until people will marvel at the Lord and at His presence moving within them. This is the key; this is the secret. No ministry is worth anything if it does not reveal the ways of the Lord to the people.
False prophets will arise in this day, doing signs and wonders that will satisfy anyone desiring only to be mystified, with no concern about understanding the ways of the Lord. False Christs will arise and do astounding things; but when it is all over and you are asked, “Did you see the Lord?” you will have to admit, “No, but I certainly saw a miracle.” There are people who run from meeting to meeting, wanting to see miracles, but they have never had a revelation of the Lord. They are Jacobs, not yet ready to receive in a way that it could unfold to their hearts. The limping Israels, those who have suffered, are the ones who know and understand the ways of the Lord. When Israel was an old man, leaning on his staff, he prophesied over all of his children and some of his grandchildren—prophecies that were centuries in their unfolding. He prophesied that out of Judah would come the lion’s whelp that would take a prey (Genesis 49:9). The Lord Jesus Christ was the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Jacob could walk with God in a sense, but it was Israel who was able to see into the centuries to come and speak a prophecy which started something that was never going to end. It was Israel who knew the ways of the Lord. Upon Israel, the crippled prince, the Word rested.
How will we come to know the ways of the Lord? How can we tell whether or not a prophecy is true? How can we be like that true Israel of the Lord, and not only have the Word come to us, but light on us? One passage that will unfold this to us is John 7:14–18: But when it was now the midst of the feast (the Feast of Tabernacles) Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach. The Jews therefore were marveling, saying, “ ‘How has this man become learned, having never been educated?” Jesus therefore answered them, and said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the one who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” They marveled at Jesus’ teaching, saying, “This man never learned. He is not an educated man. Where did He get this Word? We don’t understand it” (John 7:15). The very question revealed their ignorance. If they had been discerning, they would have known that the teaching came from the Lord. Jesus told them, “I’m not speaking from Myself; I’m speaking from God. If any man will do His will, he will know whether or not the teaching is of God.”
Do you want to be an Israel of God who understands the ways of the Lord? Your dedication determines your discernment. If any man is determined and set in his heart to do the will of God, he is going to know whether or not the teaching is of God. People who complain about being confused must realize that when they become dedicated to do the Lord’s will, the confusion will end. Your dedication determines your discernment, and discernment is a certainty of revelation to your heart. When the Word comes to you as a Jacob, you will wrestle with it; but when you become an Israel, it will light upon you, and you will walk in it and live under its anointing.
If the Word is veiled and hidden, perhaps God intends it to be so. Maybe it is the goodness of God that you do not understand any more than you do about the gifts. Maybe you are not dedicated enough to know what you are supposed to be doing, and therefore you are confused. It is good if God keeps you confused until you become dedicated enough to walk in the light that He gives you.
As you determine to do His will, He will start opening the door, and one teaching after another will come alive to you. However, you must be careful not to speak words to people that they are not prepared to receive.
Daniel described the day when many of God’s people will be tried and made righteous, purified and made white—the day when the seals will be taken off the Book (Daniel 12:9–10). When the Lord has prepared His people—when He has a camp of people with the caliber of Israel—then the seals will be taken off the Book. He is preparing a people right now for the new unveiling of the Word, as He brings to them new levels of truth in the Scripture. There will be tribulation and judgment as the seals are taken off the Book. Simultaneously with the Lord opening up the Word in a new depth and understanding, people will speak the Word of the Lord, and the world will be filled with judgments and tribulation.
When prophecies come over an individual, trials and tests usually follow, crippling him, Jacob-style. God is a master at the process of putting a man out of joint in order to produce a prince of God. He took Paul, showed him the heavenly places, and then brought him down and sent a devil, a messenger from Satan, to buffet him in the flesh. For what purpose? so that he would not be too puffed up, but would go on trusting in the Lord. People ran down the street ahead of him shouting, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 17:6). That man, limping along with all those scars and marks from the many beatings, could turn the world upside down?
As the Lord speaks, prophecies and revelations will come. You who are going through the fire and the testing will see them fulfilled. You are going to understand His ways as you are taken right into the heart of God to commune with Him. You will walk with the Lord through the end time, right on into the Kingdom. There is an exceeding great company in the army of the Lord, all limping together, led by the Lord as He utters His voice before His camp. They do not thrust one another through or break ranks. They all see eye to eye as the Lord brings again Zion (Isaiah 52:8). He is helping them to become that Israel of God who will understand and walk in the ways of the Lord.