and peace at last in his old age in Egypt, let him find his son
Joseph again in power and honour: but all along God punished his
own inventions--as he will punish yours and mine, my friends, all
the while that he may be accepting our faith and delivering our
souls, because we trust in him. So God rewarded Jacob by giving him
more light: by not leaving him to himself, and his own darkness and
meanness, but opening his eyes to understand the wondrous things of
God's law, and showing him how God's law is everlasting, righteous,
not to be escaped by any man; how every action brings forth its
appointed fruit; how those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind.
Jacob's first notion was like the notion of the heathen in all
times, 'My God has a special favour for me, therefore I may do what
I like. He will prosper me in doing wrong; he will help me to cheat
my father.' But God showed him that that was just not what he would
do for him. He would help and protect him; but only while he was
doing RIGHT. God would not alter his moral laws for him or any man.
God would be just and righteous; and Jacob must be so likewise, till
he learnt to trust not merely in a God who happened to have a
special favour to him, but in the righteous God who loves justice,
and wishes to make men righteous even as he is righteous, and will
make them righteous, if they trust in him.

That was the reward of Jacob's faith--the best reward which any man
can have. He was taught to know God, whom truly to know is
everlasting life. And this, it seems to me, is the great revelation
concerning God which we learn from the history of Jacob and Esau.
That God, how much soever favour he may show to certain persons, is
still, essentially and always, a just God.

And now, my friends, if any of you are tempted to follow Jacob's