Dear Ones:
Men forget…God does not. Jacob made a vow to God which God would bring to his remembrance fifteen to twenty years later. Jacob may have forgotten, but God did not. In that vow, Jacob had said to God: “If God will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God.” (Gen. 28:20-21) Jacob, who had a dream of God, and consequently, made this vow, calling the place of the vow Bethel, went to Padanaram, where he married twice, was deceived and cheated by his uncle many times, but was kept and blessed by God. There would come a time when Jacob would see that he was no longer accepted, or liked, and that the attitude of Laban and his sons was changing for the worse towards him. It will be at this particular time that God would speak to Jacob. “Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee.” (Gen. 31:3) “I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointest the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto Me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.” (31:13) It is very clear here that God did not forget what Jacob had promised, vowed, and this, irrespective of all that had transpired during the time he was in Padanaram. He remembered.
In Romans 11:29, Paul writes: “…for the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.” This simply means that God has not forgotten that which He has given in response to faith, nor has His calling of the individual altered, and this, irrespective of circumstances. In considering Samson, after that he had so greatly sinned, we might have thought that all was finished with him, that God had finished with him. Not so. What was needful so that he again would be able to use the gifts, and fulfill his calling, was a restored right attitude towards God. The result was that more was accomplished by his death than in his life. That which makes the use of God’s gifts, and the realization of His calling a reality, is true fellowship with Him, with “no cloud between.”
I met “Uncle John” at the Bible Institute I attended. He had lost the lower part of one of his legs in an accident on the farm when he was a young man. During World War II, he was in the merchant marine, and worked in the hold of the ship maintaining the engines. Enemy fighters began strafing the ship, and Uncle John uttered a prayer to God, something like this: “Lord, if you get me out of here alive, and give me four sons, I will serve you all my life.” Uncle John really meant business with God that day. God kept him alive, and gave him four sons (no daughters)!!! Uncle John served the Lord, as he had promised, for the remainder of his life. God had remembered.
God does NOT forget what we say, promise, vow…commit to Him. We may forget, He does not. For the realization of that commitment, and the full use of His gifts, accompanied by the blessing of God, there must be “rightness” before God, with nothing between. “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 Jn.1:7)
Love, Dad