Jacob’s Journey: From Deceiver to Israel

SPEAKER 01 : 0:09

Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let’s join Barbara in the studio.

SPEAKER 02 : 1:03

Welcome to Call to Freedom. And that number is good 24-7. It is here in the studio at 1 o’clock every day, Monday through Thursday. You can dial that number. You don’t dial anymore, do you? Or you can call me afterwards, and I will receive a message from you. And if you leave your number, I will call you back. 1-877-917-7256. hasn’t it changed we used to dial dial on the phone and then we use those wonderful little keys and now we just carry our phones everywhere we want to oh praise god we gotta keep up with the times commit to the lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed i’m right i’m reading right now through proverbs and they’re such wonderful gems right out of god’s book and well I’m so thankful that he talks about the righteous, and then he talks about the rewards of the ungodly and wicked, which are not very good. Oh, praise the Lord. We have a God who is faithful and true, and he’s a loving God above everything else. I was watching the U.S. Open this weekend, and there was a player, and I had just gotten in on some of it. He had made five bogeys. And a bogey is when you do some holes above what the par is. And he was in a hole. He was in a deep hole. And I thought, oh, that poor guy, Spahn, is not going to make it today. Do you know what? He won the U.S. Open. At one point in the open, in the final round, he said, am I ever going to make par? And that’s the idea we get sometimes. I don’t know why it happened. I really don’t. But I know that he kept trying and he kept going hole after hole until he made at the end. And this is spectacular. You know that he’s a good golfer to make the U.S. Open. He made a 64-foot putt. Now, that was amazing. That won him the game. The U.S. Open. Praise the Lord. Wow. That is wonderful to see how man can do so many things, achieve so many things in life. And yet we have a God that if we obey him, oh, friend, you’ve got so much opportunity to see God at work in your life. Oh, you are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. I love to say that verse every day. This morning at five o’clock, I was awakened by the chimes just going off on the patio. I mean, there was a wind that came up. It was amazing. It was like a little mini tornado kind of thing. And then the wind settled down and it started raining. And it was such a peaceful, gentle rain. I believe it was Holy Spirit that said, go to the front door, go to the front door and just stand there and watch my majesty and glory. And so I did. I went to the front door and there for a few minutes, just enjoyed the rain coming down. It’s as if the wind of Holy Spirit brought this refreshing, not only in the physical, but also in the spirit. And I sat at the piano for about a half an hour, praising God from whom all blessings flow. And then I heard on the local news that Milliken and Johnstown had received large donations. A devastating hail. And some of the hail were the size of baseballs. I am so sorry. I hope it didn’t damage your house or gardens or the crops in your field. I was just saying yesterday how farming can be such a gamble, but it also can be so rewarding. And I just pray for all of you in the area of northern Colorado that you will see some wonderful results and rewards from if you did get damaged. The meteorologist today said this event in the middle of the night was rare, really rare. We were supposed to have in the high 80s today. And I came to the studio today and the clouds. Oh, I love those clouds. I know they were dark. Some of them were dark. But I mean, we see God’s majesty every day, friend. Every day we see his majesty. I remember we had just moved to the farm north of Greeley. And before that, we had been on Grandpa Henkel’s farm. They had built a little house, a two-bedroom house for us. And so my dad was farming with my Grandpa Henkel. And then he decided he wanted to go on his own. And so Grandpa Henkel disinherited him. Yep, that’s what happens sometimes. And he moved to that farm north of Greeley at Pierce. And I remember one night… The hail that came down. It must have been like the hail that they just saw in Milliken and Johnstown, the size of baseballs. I mean, it stripped the screens on the windows. And one of the saddest things I ever saw as a little girl was… was when Dad walked out in the middle of the beet field, and there was nothing left of the beets. Nothing. Nothing. And it was just muddy, just a muddy field. And, of course, Dad had to go to the bank and ask for a loan, and which the bank gave him a loan, that he could at least plant beans, because beans came up very quickly on the farm. And you know what happened? The next year, Dad got the highest production, the beat production, in Weld County. And Weld County is a huge county in Colorado. And my dad made top ten, and he was the top producer, the top yield of beat production. And I think, God, you’re so faithful. Now, why that happened, I believe that we are all tested. And that’s not a temptation of God. He doesn’t just try to roll over us with his might and his power. He wants to introduce us into a higher realm of faith. And we have to go through those times, those times of testing. And I’m grateful for that. I truly am. Folks, you’re going to see more frequency and intensity in the weather and signs and wonders right before Jesus returns. It was prophesied by him and the prophets in the Bible. We should be aware and not alarmed at what’s going on. At times like this, it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord. He is so faithful and true to his word. See, he is living by the word of God, by the Bible that you read every day to fulfill everything in that Bible about the times that are ahead. He’s got to fulfill all that because he’s God and he promised that. So we’re going to see a lot of that going on. Memory verse for this week is Romans 10, and I’m going to read 16 and 17 from the New American Standard. See, he wants to build up your faith today. Do you have that faith that it takes to walk on the water like Peter did? As it is written, the righteous person shall live by faith. That’s from Habakkuk 2. And then in the New Living Translation, Romans 1, 16 and 17, I am not ashamed of this good news about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes, the Jew first and also the Gentile first. This good news tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by what? By faith. By faith. It is by faith that you’re getting your wonderful reward here on earth, but also in heaven. It is by faith that you were saved. And by the grace of God, he is going to bring you higher and higher. and bring more and more increased faith into your life as the scriptures say it is through faith that a righteous person has life praise the lord i love that scripture romans 1 16. there are many times that holy spirit nudges us with questions or scenarios for opportunities in our lives and when i think of revelation there are several old testament prophets and godly people that come to mind We, in the full gospel realm, we talk about revelation knowledge, which is one of the gifts of Holy Spirit. And that seems to be kind of up there in the ethereal. You know, people, I don’t really understand that. Well, a revelation is a message from God. He’s given it to specific people. All of us, I believe, have revelations in our lives. Some of us ignore it, and some of us really take it to heart and do something about it and put action to it. Now, one of these Old Testament prophets that received lots of revelation was Elijah in 1 Kings. And another is Jacob. I want to talk about Jacob for a few minutes. He received a revelation from God when he was running away from home after supplanting Esau’s birthright from him. I don’t want to tell you some. I’m sorry, but some of these Bible teachers that say Jacob was a deceitful man. He was a deceiver. He is not. He’s a planter by strategic planning. His mother. gave him the birthright. And I want to tell you why Rebecca gave her son Jacob the birthright. Do you know why? It was God who told her that the elder would serve the younger. It was God himself that came and revealed this plan about Jacob being the first to receive the because he was going to plan the 12 tribes from jacob’s loins amen hallelujah so jacob is not a deceiver jacob was a supplanter because his mother heard from god i mean what else is there oh and jacob he was running you know you know the story about jacob and so many people say he deceived his brother no esau esau was the one that gave his birth right away And Jacob went to be with his uncle Laban after he and his mother Rebekah supplanted his brother Esau. And on the way to Haran, Jacob had a dream where God told him, I am God. Now, if he would have been a deceiver, if he would have been in sin, God would not have come to him like this. I am God, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. I’m giving this ground on which you are sleeping to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be as the dust of the earth. They’ll stretch from west to east and north to south. All the families of the earth will bless themselves in you and your descendants. Yes, I’ll stay with you. I’ll protect you wherever you go. See, that’s a God who loves this kid. I mean, he was probably in his late teens. And I’ll bring you back to this very ground. I’ll stick with you until I’ve done everything I promised you. And that’s from Genesis 28. And I was reading from the message. That’s revelation, folks. For 20 years, Jacob worked for his uncle. And in that time, he had two wives and 10 children by Leah and concubines and Joseph by Rachel. And there came a time in this story where fear tried to grip Jacob’s heart when he was returning to his home. He had left 20 years before. Just think, 20 years had gone by. He was so scared of seeing Esau and all the things that had reminded him of not as such a good childhood that he put his beloved wife Rachel and his son Joseph at the end of the caravan in case there would be war. That night along the trip he was confronted by the man Jesus who wrestled with him and changed him into a new man. He gave him a new name, Israel. We hear that every day now. Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. And that’s Genesis 32, verse 28. Now, Jacob had received a revelation from God many years late and from God many years before. And that was when he was asleep and the angels were coming up and down on the ladder. And God says, I’m going to give you this ground that you’re sleeping on. And then in a moment with Jesus himself, he experienced a revolution, a change of heart and direction and dominion in his life. Jacob had been a man who’d been driven and he lived his life with great labor and earnestness of the work he was doing for Laban. He did excellent work and accomplished much in those 20 years. That drive that most of us are born with becomes a striving in the spirit that must be directed in a new direction. Now, some of us, we stay in that place where we’re just born again and just, you know, one foot in the world and one foot in heaven. And this is not where God wants you. He wants you all with him, completely him, 100% with him. And so we see here a shift in the transformation of Jacob. And you’re going to see a shift like this too in your life. You’re going to see an opportunity to be a different kind of person. You can either ignore it if you want to, or you can receive it and begin to act on it. Now, that’s called a paradigm. And we see this paradigm from Jonathan Cahn’s book by that same title. And he defines paradigm as a pattern or a model, a template, a prototype, an exemplar, an archetype. This blueprint given to God’s people in the Old Testament is a prototype of things being revealed in our modern world right now. Even the timing of these events and people who are taking part in this revolution of paradigms is almost too strange to be true. Take, for instance, there was a king in the Old Testament. Some say it was Jehu and some Josiah that absolutely fit the bill of President Trump. I mean, it’s unreal. So that’s, again, why God is a God of wonder. Oh, folks, he’s a God of wonder. It’s a letting go opportunity. that we have talked about all our lives oh i’m i’m giving it all all i surrender all oh yes i sing that song all the time i trust in you lord and then we go and do something stupid we make our own decisions and then we regret it and guess who we blame we blame god it’s just like the people in america that are blaming president trump he didn’t have to do he didn’t have anything to do with these protests and stuff but oh they’re blaming president trump And so we have to trust in God. And we haven’t really known that kind of trust until we get into a revelation and that revelation becomes a paradigm, a shifting in transformation. I say to you today, allow this shift to take place, especially during this changing time we find ourselves. Many people fear this process because it takes them out of their comfort zone. But I’m tired and weary of my comfort zone. So I am looking forward with enthusiasm to what God has planned for me. I feel like one of these little incidences this morning when God woke me up with the chimes going off and the wind and then the gentle rain. And as I opened the front door, I felt Holy Spirit just raining down on me. It was such a wonderful revelation and refreshing for my spirit and my soul. Psalm 22, verse 8, one of David’s beautiful psalms. It says, commit yourself to the Lord. Commit, commit yourself. Let him deliver you. Let him rescue you because he delights in you. Do you need rescuing today? We must remain teachable and flexible. David trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him just like Jacob did. And Jacob was a wonderful father to 12 sons who became the 12 elders of Israel. And in the revelation, you’re going to hear about them being around the throne. I have experienced revelations in my life, but not to the degree that I had with my husband. not nearly personal as I had with my husband, Darren. In 1979, Darren received a revelation from God while he was driving north on I-35 from Wichita going to Denver. Holy Spirit asked him, how would you like to go into the gas and oil business? He was kind of astounded by that question. That question came from the Lord. And he could have sloughed it off, you know, the invitation from God and said, no, I’m too busy with TV and ministry right now. I can’t even look into it. But he didn’t. I loved his tenacity and his drive. I’ve never met another man with his tenacity and drive like Darren Carmack. Just last night, I heard from a lady an email from Delaware. And she said, is Darren from Darren’s coffee shop still alive? I would love to have some of his tapes or CDs. And it was so refreshing to even, you know, even though I had to tell her that he’s with the Lord, to realize that people are still thinking of Darren from Darren’s coffee shop. And Darren was a little like Samuel. Remember when Samuel was a little boy and God called him and called Samuel and he ran to Eli and said, I’m here. And Eli says, go back to bed. It wasn’t me. And a second time he ran to Eli and Eli says, it’s not me. But he said, when he calls to you the next time, say, yes, I am here, Lord, which he did. And the Lord gave him such instruction. Well, Darren worked on this revelation by going to several gas companies in Denver, and all of them rejected him. In fact, a couple of them threw him out, calling him a nut. Because he said he wanted to lease an empty gas well and God was going to fill it up. Now, these ideas came from God after he knew Darren to be a messenger of his grace and glory. And he finally found a man who was a born-again believer in Denver here. And God bless him, he gave Darren three empty wells in Rock Springs, Wyoming for $10 apiece. And he leased them. And then Darren began praying. And it took nine years. It took nine years. We went back and forth from Rock Springs, Wyoming, back and forth dozens of times, anointed those rusty old pipes and those wells and walked around the perimeter of those wells. And he was always praying for 500 PSI, pressure per square inch. That’s what it took to get that gas up and into the lines, into the pipes. And after nine years, that revelation took place. See, the revelation became a revolution because it changed us. And that revolution took us deeper into the faith realm than we could have ever imagined. Revelation became revolution. Oh, praise God. And revolution is a sudden radical and complete change, a fundamental change in you. Don’t you want that change? Don’t you ache for that change? Oh, I do. I really do. I believe that that’s part of our freedom that we’re thanking our Lord Jesus for. Oh, the goodness of God is everlasting to everlasting, my friend. As you look out today over Denver and see those wonderful clouds, those clouds are created by God just as you were created by God, our Father. Here’s CeCe Winans.

SPEAKER 03 : 21:03

I love you, Lord, for your mercy never fails me. All my days I’ve been held in your hand. From the moment that I wake, Till I lay my head, oh I will sing Of the goodness of God Cause all my life you have been faithful And all my life you have been so, so good With every breath that I am able, oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. I love your voice. You have led me through the fire. In darkest night, you are close like no other. I’ve known you as a father. I’ve known you as a friend. And I have lived in the goodness of God.

SPEAKER 1 : 22:36

Hey!

SPEAKER 03 : 22:38

Because all my life you have been faithful. Oh, yes, you have. For my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able. Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. Your goodness is running after, it’s running after. Your goodness is running after, is running after me. With my life laid down, I surrender now. I give you everything, oh Lord. Your goodness is running after, is running after me.

SPEAKER 04 : 23:48

Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me. With my life laid down, I surrender now. I give you everything. Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me.

SPEAKER 03 : 24:17

And all my life you have been faithful And all my life you have been so, so good With every breath that I am able

SPEAKER 02 : 25:02

Oh, praise God. I hope you can say with me, all my life, Lord, you have been faithful. Oh, I’m talking to you today about revolution. It’s a fundamental change in the way you’re thinking, in the way I’m thinking. It’s visualizing something in the spirit. And be no longer conformed to this world, but be transformed. That’s revolution by the renewing of your mind by the word of God. That’s Romans 12, verse 2. It’s a metamorphosis of sorts. It’s you going from a cocoon hanging there in a tree or on a bush to a beautiful butterfly. Oh, praise God. Revolution is a change of paradigm. It’s a shifting from what you’re used to Getting out of that comfort zone and into something that’s so exciting. It’s letting yourself dream and allow God’s vision to permeate your soul. Look to something good happening in your life. Something good is going to happen, friend. It truly is. When we wake up and we say, nope, I’ve had enough of my old life. I want something new. Father God, help me to see you in everything I do all day long. You are there, my focus. You are in front of me all day long. So let’s decide we’re going to go from a cocoon to a butterfly. Beautiful monarch butterfly phrase. God. Oh, I love you. I love you so much. It’s so good talking to you every day. And I want you to know that you are so special and unique to God. You’re a special creation. He loves you. He adores you. And he delights in you. Take joy, my friend. Take joy.

SPEAKER 1 : 26:44

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SPEAKER 01 : 27:21

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SPEAKER 1 : 28:26

Thank you.