Psalms 146:5

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help.

The God of Jacob

Few of God’s names are more suggestive than the one in the verse before us--the God of Jacob. It is very instructive, for example, and very comforting too, to find that God is willing to have His name so closely associated with that of a human being. The vastness of the material universe, with all its myriad hosts of suns and stars, sometimes staggers our faith, and makes us wonder if human life can really be the object of the Almighty care and love. To all such questionings we find an answer in this beautiful name. The God of unfathomable Space and immeasurable time is not unmindful of the life of man, The Lord of all those starry hosts--He also is the God of Jacob. And then this name shows, still further, that God cares not only for human beings, but for individual souls. The God of Jacob must be--

I. One who loves great sinners and pardons great transgressions. Sometimes a man feels as if he were too far gone in trespasses and sins to lift up his head in the presence of God, too full of utter selfishness and worldliness to dream of ever becoming a child of God at all. To such a man I would say, Just look at Jacob. If God became that man’s God, surely He may become your God also. And sometimes one who has begun the Christian life, but has been overtaken in a fault, or in some other way has been backsliding in the path on which he started, loses heart and cries, It’s useless for me to try to begin afresh; my nature is so weak, and the world around me is so strong. Again I would say, Look at Jacob! Bethel was Jacob’s trysting-place with God; but long after Bethel was past Jacob sinned, and sinned again. And yet God did not forsake him or cast him away, but kept His hand upon him and carried him through, until, at last, He set his feet upon a rock and established his goings.

II. One who hears a sinner’s prayer. It is these prayers of Jacob which form the great redeeming feature of his character, and which, eventually, work out the man’s salvation. With all his earthliness and selfishness he was a man who believed in God, and who believed also in prayer. The fact that he had a very sinful heart is no proof that his prayers were hypocritical. It teaches us, rather, that we must not wait untill we are saints before we begin to pray, for it is only by praying that we shall ever rise to any kind of sainthood.

III. One who purifies His sons by painful trial. Jacob has been called “a Janus, with two faces, one turned upwards to heaven, the other downwards to hell.” But Jacob was more than a Janus, for Janus only had two faces, while Jacob had two hearts. His two names point to his two natures--Jacob and Israel, the natural man and the spiritual man, the supplanter of his brother and the prince of God. Now, here was the problem of Jacob’s life: How is the natural man to be spiritualized; how is the sinner to become a saint; how is the Jacob nature to be cast out, and the Israel nature to prevail? And this was the answer which God gave on every page of Jacob’s history, It can only be done by sore and bitter trial. As a refiner of silver or gold deals with the impure but precious metal, so did God deal with this wayward child of His love. He sent him sorrow upon sorrow, until all the earthiness and dross was purged out of his heart, and Jacob became, not only in name, but in very nature, Israel, the Prince of God. (J. C,. Lambert, B. D.)

Happiness

I. Happiness in a worldly sense is an impossible attainment. This is proved--

1. By the wants, calamities, passions, and weaknesses of human nature. Each of these would prevent the attainment of happiness.

2. By the changing, transitory nature of the world and its contents. That pleasure which can be dashed away in a moment cannot be happiness.

3. By the fact that all here are under the dominion of sin. Sin blights all things, sin embitters all things, sin brings a curse on all things.

II. Happiness in a spiritual sense is a possible and a blessed reality. The reasons for this, given in our text, are two-fold--assistance in the present and hope in the future.

1. Assistance in the present. The God of Jacob is his help. Notice that a man may have difficulties and yet be happy. God is his help. Oh, what a help! His power, greatness, goodness, all exercised on the Christian’s behalf.

2. Hope for the future--“Whose hope is in the Lord.” Hope, even in the present, can give happiness. But this hope will one day be realized and its fruition will be perfect joy. It is in the Lord our God that perfect happiness is only to be found. May we seek Him for our help and make Him our hope. (Homilist.)