The Prayer of Jabez — Mary Peckham

Only 19 years of age, and then out of the Bible college into the highlands and islands of Scotland to sing and witness in my own tongue, not English, but Gaelic. Would you like to hear it? Now you see if you can make out any words.

I'll not tell you what I'm going to say, so you'll tell me what it is. There's one he knows, he guessed, John chapter 3 verse 16. I should have quoted something else and then he would have been stumped.

So I spent about nine years in the highlands and islands of Scotland singing and witnessing the Word of God and visiting from door to door. It's amazing what happens when you get to know the people and the people come to trust you.

Some of them who hadn't been to church for many, many years, sometimes we had to tease them into coming along to the services. Other times they came because they were invited. Other times they came because they had some godly person in the family and they wanted to please them.

But above all they came because they were compelled by the Spirit of God to come. From the highlands and islands of Scotland I moved to the midlands of England, which was quite different, altogether different, and spent two years there going round the villages, because that's what the faith mission does, going round the rural areas of Great Britain.

And so we did that. And then I went further afield for about five years, travelled across Canada to South Africa, to Malawi, to Rhodesia as it then was, now Zimbabwe, and then continued a series of invitations, campaigns, camps, conventions, and so on.

Three times I went to South Africa and the third time I got stuck, very nicely stuck though. I got married and came back to Britain, three children later. And then we went back to South Africa, a colony of South Africans, that's why we know Peter Daniel so well, who was here at the men's retreat.

And then we served the Lord in Africa for almost 15 years. Then in 1982 Colin was invited to become the principal of the Faith Mission Bible College in Edinburgh, and that's where we are now. Our Bible colleges are not as large as yours, because only those who are called into full-time service attend the Bible college, so we have about 52, and they range from Koreans to Canadians.

We have one from Jamaica, we have Zimbabwe, South Africa, and so on. Burma, China, two from Romania at the moment. We've got 52 students in all. And that is a full-time job for Colin. I think today being Wednesday he will have lectured three times this morning, and then he'll be into the program of the college.

And I know that his heart is very much with you at the ladies' meeting. We've packed the program across to them today, and I know that they will be praying for us constantly through the days. Of course they're five hours ahead of us, and I'm not expecting them to be awake during the night to pray for us at the evening session, but I know that they will be remembering us.

Isaiah 64 and the Need for God’s Presence

Now we'll turn to the Word of God as we find it in Isaiah chapter 64, and I hope that you don't have any problem with my accent, as you call it. I'll promise not to read it to you in Gaelic. That's pretty much in the middle of the Bible.

Oh, that thou wouldest rend the heavens, and that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence.

When thou didst terrible things which we look not for, thou camest down. The mountains flowed down at thy presence. For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither have I seen no God beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.

Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways. Behold thou art wroth, for we have sinned in those as continuance, and we shall be saved. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. For thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, thou art our father.

We are the clay, and thou our potter, and we all are the work of thy hand. Be not wroth, very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever. Behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burnt up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself from these things, O Lord? Wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore?

Amen. May God bless to us this reading from his word. Now we'll turn to Chronicles. That's a bit further back. 1 Chronicles, and we will turn to chapter 4. And I'm not going to read to you all the names of these wonderful people that are listed here.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind anyway if I pronounce them wrongly because they're all dead. But I'll read what you can understand from verse 9. 1 Chronicles, chapter 4, and verse 9. You all found it? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Luke.

You know them? Okay. Verse 9,. And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren. And his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bear him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.

And God granted him that which he requested. Just these two verses. Let us unite our hearts in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we need Thee. As we bow in Thy presence, we need Thee to still our hearts. We've been excited meeting with each other.

We've been coming long journeys. And we come with an expectation in our hearts that we should meet with Thee. That Thy presence might permeate this building. That Thou wilt make Thy presence known to us.

We know, Lord, that Thou art here, but sometimes we are insensitive to Thy presence. But the preparation of the heart and the answer of the lips belongs to Thee. And so we give our hearts to Thee at this moment to prepare us.

Thy Holy Spirit, to prepare our hearts and to take the Word and to apply it to us. Speak, Lord, in the stillness while we wait on Thee. Hush our hearts to listen in expectancy. Speak, O blessed Master, in this quiet hour.

Let us see Thy face, Lord, and feel Thy touch of power. We ask it in that name that is above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Verses 9 and 10 of 1 Chronicles chapter 4. It's worth reading all these fancy names right through to come to a verse like this.

Jabez: More Honorable Than His Brethren

There's nothing said about the rest of them in the chapter. But amazingly there is this brief record given of this man named Jabez. And what we read of him is this, that he was more honorable than his brethren.

I don't know what his brethren were like. Maybe they were not honorable. But that is beside the point. The record says that he was more honorable than his brethren. And then it tells us that his name was Jabez and that his mother named him so because she said she bore him with sorrow.

And you ladies know that that is not the normal. When a child is born there is great joy. I remember when our first one was born. And you should see the size of him now. He's now 26 and he's big. But when he was born he was only 5 pounds 2.

He was just a little wrinkled scrap. And his dad went proudly up to the window of the nursery. Because really they weren't allowed to come in. And all the babies were in the nursery in a Johannesburg hospital.

And he came with his card, Peckham, and all these other gentlemen in front of them. That's all they had to do. Come and see what happened. And so they queued up and then they went proudly to the window, you know.

And everyone held out Van der Merwe and Van der Kolk and Van der whatever, their South African names. And all these plump little babies were brought, you know. And dad smiled and went on, you know. And then they came with young Colin.

And Colin said, oh my word. One of his sayings, by the way, oh my word. He wasn't very joyful then but he was very proud of him later on. But normally the birth of a child brings great joy. I say normally, under normal circumstances.

But somehow or other the circumstances weren't such when Jabez was born. I don't know whether she had a hard time. She could have had. She could have had a long, long, long labor. I don't know. But she bore him with sorrow.

And so she called his name Jabez and he had to carry that name right through his life. What a heritage poor Jabez had. I wonder was he teased about his name. Maybe there was some other kind of sorrow that accompanied his birth.

Maybe there was sickness. Maybe there was death. We are not told. We are just told that she bore him with sorrow. And he carried that name with him right through his life. But it didn't seem to affect him adversely because the Bible says that Jabez was more honorable than his brethren.

Sorrow as a School for Seeking God

And the thought that comes to me is this concerning his name and concerning the circumstances, concerning his childhood. Sorrow is very often a good breeding ground in seeking God. It is better to go to the house of sorrow, mourning, than to the house of joy.

And I think we only realize that when we do come to the house of sorrow. I know in the islands where I come from, when I was telling someone today, when there is sorrow, when there is grief, when there is bereavement, everybody in the community comes to console those who have been bereaved.

They come from all over the place. Work stops in the village where the death has taken place. And the people come to sympathize. I'm never empty handed. They always come bringing something with them. If they don't bring baked stuff, tea, sugar, all sorts, until the cupboards are bulging in the house of the bereaved.

And they bring money. Anything to help and console in a time of grief. And when I've gone to such a situation, to such a home, I've often felt nearer to God. Than if I went to a party, for instance. Isn't that true?

Flowers can grow on refugees. And very often, goodness can come out of a sorrowful circumstance. And many have come to Christ through bereavement. Through what God has done for them in these circumstances.

Through the awesome, awful finality of death. Well, Jabez, his name was Sorrow. But he was more honorable than his brethren. And whether it was the sorrow of the past that lingered on. The cloud that carried over the home.

Or whatever it was. Jabez turned to God. And it says, Jabez called on the God of Israel. Well, many people call on the God of Israel. Many people pray. But not so many can say, God, grant unto them that which you requested.

Not every prayer can gain the ear of God. Many people in times of grief or times of danger will cry out and say, Oh God, help me. Or something happens and they say, Oh God. But there is no answer from the heavens.

Sometimes there is. But more often than not, there isn't. Because their prayer is a sort of an emergency exit. It's just something that a rainy day experience. Or a stormy day experience. And when the circumstances change, then there's no word of prayer.

But Jabez's prayer was not like that. And I want us to look first of all at his prayer, the sincerity of his prayer. It is preceded by an Oh. And any prayer that is preceded by an Oh is genuine and it is sincere.

Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. I like that prayer. It's a personal prayer. It's not a general prayer. So often we come to God, don't we, and we bring our shopping list, our long shopping list to God.

We bring it daily and we ask God to do this and to do that and do the other thing. We rise from our knees if we have been on our knees. And then we go forth into the day's work with the consolation that we have done it again and we have said it again.

That's all there is to it. Our prayer has not been preceded by an Oh. That sincerity, that depth. Oh, for depth in this day of shallowness in Christian experience. Depth. Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed.

You could take every single word of that and get something out of it. Oh is a word of desperation. You know, Jabez realized that he had a need of God's blessing. And how wonderful if every lady who came to this conference weekend had a personal awareness of this fact.

That they have a need. And that they have a need that only God can meet. Not other people. But God alone. I remember as a teenager, after a meeting during that revival, kneeling beside the late Duncan Campbell, who was the minister during the revival.

Now, I didn't even know whether I was seeking or not. But as most teenagers, I wanted God to do something real in my life if he did it at all. And I heard Duncan Campbell praying for me and I thought, well, that's wonderful that he should pray for me.

I can't put any confidence in the man's prayer or what he prays. And he quoted some verses of scripture to me. And I thought, well, that's wonderful. That's nice of him. But I don't want a text of scripture from his lips.

I want God to speak to me. Now, you might think I was a very stubborn case. My mother always thought I was stubborn. I wanted to be real. And I wanted something that you couldn't explain on a human basis.

There's so many testimonies and they speak about, well, I trusted God for this and I trusted God for that. But they don't wait for God to confirm it from heaven through his word. But the work has really been done in their lives.

And I was grateful for the prayer of the man of God. I wasn't ungrateful. But I wanted God himself to speak. Because I knew that I had a need that only God could meet. And that the experience that I was seeking, that must be a supernatural experience.

Something that couldn't be explained on a human basis. You know, the emphasis in Britain these days, in evangelical circles, and I'm sure it is here too, is on teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching.

And we know it all. We know how to deal with our children. We've got it all in theory. We've got everything in theory. Every circumstance of life, whatever happens. Every stage of our Christian experience.

It's all in book form or it's all preached to us. And we learn it. There's a verse in the Bible that says, ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. In other words, it's all coming to us, to our heads, and nothing to our hearts.

The Sincerity of Jabez’s Personal Prayer

Don't you want something that will move your heart? Don't you want something that will touch you in the depth of your being? Jabez was conscious of a need. He was conscious of a personal need. Bless me.

Have you come to a conference like that? Oh God, bless me. Bless me as an individual. Oh God, meet my need. Jabez was desperate about it. Oh, oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. Bless me indeed. The sincerity of his prayer in that he recognized his need.

I read to you, oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. As when the melting fire burneth, as when the fire causes the water to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that nations may tremble at thy presence.

Oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down. Oh, that thou wouldst bless. And I'm sure that every pastor, every evangelical pastor, would cry from the depths of his heart, oh, that I had people like Jabez.

Oh, that my congregation might come on a Sabbath morning and that they would come individually seeking the blessing of heaven upon themselves. Not coming just to meet with one another, not coming just to socialize, not coming just to enjoy a good sermon, not just coming to take part in the activity, but coming with a personal need to a personal God.

Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. You know, those who hunger, we've heard this already this afternoon, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. David said, as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Oh, the great God, the terrible one as He is described, my soul is thirsting for God. David said, for the living God. Oh, he cried, when shall I come and appear before God? God, my exceeding joy. And it is those who have seen Him, those who have caught a glimpse of Him, that have the greatest thirst after God.

Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. I want to bring it down to that in this opening meeting today, down to your individual level and to your individual need. Oh, God, it's not the one behind me, it's not the one in front of me, it's not the one beside me, it's me, Lord.

Oh, God, bless me and bless me indeed. He recognized his own need. There was an agony in his soul, there was a longing in his heart. There was earnest concentration upon this one thing. It was the psalmist who also said this, one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temper.

As we study the Psalms, the Psalms are the hymn book of our church at home in the islands. They only sing the Psalms, and one gets to know the Psalms from childhood. And there is this longing, there is this hungering, there is this thirsting, again and again and again, as the heart panted after the water brooks with its tongue hanging out, panting and slipping the air and longing for one thing, and that is the water brook.

So panted my soul after thee, O God. O God, he cried the word, my God, early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee. My heart longeth for thee in a dry and a thirsty land where there is no water.

Can you imagine David out there under the sky, studded with stars all over, and he's there out with his harp and his inspiration is flowing and the longing is rising within his breast, longing, longing after God.

God, my exceeding joy, the sincerity of David's prayer, O that thou wouldst bless me. Can I bring it simply to your level this afternoon, O God, would you bless me at this conference. I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad of those who are here with me, but O God, bless me.

Bless me. We were singing there earlier on, while on others they were calling, do not pass me by. The sincerity of his prayer. Now like this, the scope of his prayer, O that thou wouldst bless me indeed and enlarge my coast.

Enlarging the Coast Through Spiritual Hunger

Now I know that that wasn't covetousness, otherwise it wouldn't have written that God granted him that which he requested. His desire was sincere. He was tired of the limitations of his dwelling. He was tired of the smallness, if I may put it that way, of his area of activity.

And he longed, he longed for largeness. Was it Patrick Wilkes who said that horizons should ever be a menace to our peace? Do you know the healthy sign of growth in a child is growth. And hunger? Pity the child who's not hungry.

And pity the Christian who's not hungry. Pity these poor people who have had some kind of experience of God way back there years ago, and they keep harping back to that one experience of God and there's nothing much happening today.

They think that was it. That was the grand finale and now we're just coasting on to eternity. That's not Christianity. That's not godliness. The scope of his prayer? Enlarge my coast. Enlarge my coast.

Do you remember the Laodicean church? Do you remember what they said? I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. Oh, pity you, poor soul, if you've come to this conference and you have need of nothing spiritually.

You've arrived. Pity you. If that is all there is for you, all that you have. I'm glad I don't believe that. The Dave Murray McChain of Scotland prayed this prayer. God, make me as holy as it is possible for a saved sinner to be.

A healthy person is always hungry and is always lonely and is never satisfied. I'm rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. And God said, And thou knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

I counsel of thee to buy of me gold dried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich. And white raiment, that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. You need to be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

You need to be fed with the heavenly manna. You need to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. There is no finality in Christian experience.

Thank God for that. No finality. There's no such thing as I have arrived. Thank God for that. Okay, we've had great experiences in the past. My temptation for years after the revival in the Hebrides and these glorious times of heaven upon earth, my temptation was to believe that it could never happen again.

I've got over that. And I believe in a God who is great enough not only to do that again, but to do greater things at night. He doesn't put a hunger and a thirst into your soul just to mock you. And so he cried and he said, O that thou wouldest bless me indeed and enlarge my coast.

Enlarge my coast. There is an awful danger of settling down. And there's an awful danger of going on old steam. Just on old steam. Sometimes I've listened to testimonies and they're the same every year.

They're the same every time you hear them. There is nothing new. There is always looking back. Yes, thank God we can look back to these moments of heaven in our soul. But I'm looking for greater moments because we have a great God.

So horizons should ever be a menace to our peace. Enlarge my coast. Lord, I feel constricted. I feel so limited. I feel so small. Lord, I'm not content. I'm not happy with my present lot. If you are what you are, Lord, if the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.

I was speaking to the students at the college the other day on one of the Psalms. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork day unto day, uttereth speech night unto night, showeth wisdom.

There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their sound has gone out to the ends of the earth. And I began to think of God's creation, the greatness of it, and I quickly went to the bookcase in our home and I took out this volume on the world book and I turned to the stars and the heavens and the wonder of it all.

And I discovered that a star, many stars, billions of stars, couldn't fit into the distance between us on planet earth and the sun 93 million miles away. They wouldn't fit into that. And there are billions of them and they don't know how many billions, trillions.

And I thought, the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth His handiwork. The heaven of heavens, we read, cannot contain Him. God, oh, how we limit Him in our unbelief to our little sphere, to our little world, and how patient He is in putting up with us, with our limitations.

Enlarge my coast. Enlarge my coast. Some of you may be so confined in your prayers that all you can think of is just your own little world or your own little family and your own relatives and so on. You have never reached beyond that.

You have never seen the millions beyond that. I'll tell you a story that I was telling Harold last night. About one of our students, we have a number of pastors, of Korean pastors at the college, there to learn English.

They are all already degreed and what have you and they've got large congregations back in Korea. And they're there to study the Bible and to learn English. And this particular pastor, Pastor Yang, who incidentally has written some commentaries, that's the caliber of the man, he's going out to Thailand to evangelize children.

And if you've got your ears to the media, you know how needy the Thai children are. And he's working at the moment with children in the Korean church in Edinburgh. He's got 23 children from the ages of 5 to 17 and he's working with these ones.

And he spends 2 to 3 hours every Sunday afternoon with these children. And he was telling the students the other day that he has a program for them. They learn of by heart the Apostle's Creed. They learn the Ten Commandments of by heart and they learn the Beatitudes of by heart, other portions of Scripture, Corinthians 13, I think.

And then they have times of prayer. He said, we came yesterday or whatever day Sunday was, we came to our time of prayer. So I got, first of all, a solo, a boy and a girl, to pray, to share with each other.

Now remember they're 5 to 17. It's quite a range. The little ones are quite little. And to share with each other their personal needs, to confess their failings, the one to the other. And then these two would pray individually for each other.

And he said we had a duet. So we had two boys and we had two girls. And they did the same. And then he said we had an ensemble. And then we increased it until we had a whole choir. And they were all joined together, joining hands and praying.

And he said these Korean children wept as they prayed earnestly for one another and one another's needs. They poured out their hearts in confession of their own need and of their own sins. And they prayed for the children of Korea.

And they prayed with tears. And then they turned to pray for the children of Scotland. And they wept for the children of Scotland. And Pastor Young said my vision for these boys and girls is this, that they will evangelize their own Korean friends.

And then that they will evangelize those Scottish children whom they know. And then that the Scottish children in turn will evangelize the Scottish children. I thought what vision? What vision? And these little children with tears were reaching out beyond their personal needs, beyond the need of their friends, to the need of their nation, and to the need of this strange nation in which they were now living.

As their parents were studying in Edinburgh. Oh that thou wouldst enlarge my coast. Oh God, give me vision. Beyond the selfishness of my own little sphere. And enlarge my coast. Enlarge my coast. I'm hungry for enlargement.

I'm hungry and thirsty to go beyond the limitations that I now experience. Our God is a great God. And we cannot limit Him. You think of what God can do in your own life if only you open your heart to Him as Jabez did, and if only you prayed as Jabez prayed.

The scope of his prayer. And then he goes on to say, and that thine hand might be with me. You know he's going deeper all the time. Thy hand might be with me. If he got himself to the center of his prayer.

God’s Hand: Possession, Protection, and Provision

God, the center of his prayer. When we pray to God, how do we pray? You know, I find it most effective and more of a blessing to my own heart if I concentrate on God and concentrate on His Word as I pray.

And pray Scripture. Pray the Word of God. Pray the things that God has promised. Quote the words in which He has promised to bless me. And in the things He is able to do, exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or even think.

The center of his prayer is God, and he's asking God that God's hand should be upon his life. That thine hand might be with me. What a joy it is to see God's hand upon a child, upon a young person, upon an older life.

It is obvious to all when God's hand is upon us. Now, if God's hand is upon me, I take it for granted that in the first place, He will possess me. Oh God, that thine hand, the hand of God. That is a big petition.

That is a great thing that I must do. Ezekiel in chapter 37 said, The hand of the Lord was upon me and He carried me. Where? Some years ago I was at a conference in Brussels, I think it was, with OM, Operation Mobilization.

And the young people there were waiting for the announcement as to where they were going to go for the summer. And I heard a girl beside me say, I don't mind where I go as long as it's nice and sunny.

The climate is lovely. I thought, uh-uh. That's not where you're going. If I know anything about God's hand being upon me, I know that He doesn't place me always where I want to be. The hand of the Lord was upon me and He carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord and He set me down in the midst of a valley of dry bones.

And He caused me to pass by them round about. There were very many in the open valley and though they were very dry, there were no hallelujahs from that lot. What a mission field. And He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?

Lord God, Thou knowest. I didn't bring myself here. You brought me here. And You didn't bring me here to mock me. Lord God, Thou knowest. The answer to that is with Thee, Lord. I haven't got that answer.

And here is a prophet that has come from obscurity and he is in the hand of God. Do you remember by the river Keber when he sat there with the people of God, the children of Israel? He sat there and they were weeping.

How can we sing the song of Zion in a strange land? And there was Ezekiel. I sat where they sat. And he wept with them. But it says this concerning him, which it doesn't say concerning the others. It says, And I saw visions of God.

Now these visions were very mysterious and I wouldn't attempt to interpret them. But it strikes me that in the vision that Ezekiel saw of God, he saw a God of activity. Whichever way the Spirit went, the wheels went, the Spirit went, God in the heavenlies was an active God.

And that confirms what Jesus said, that you and I work. And so God is active in the heavenlies all the time. He is active. He neither slumbers nor sleeps, the Bible says. And so Ezekiel is carried by the Spirit of God and he is set down in the midst of a valley that is full of bones.

But the point is this, the hand of the Lord was upon him and the hand of the Lord possessed him and he didn't resist the hand of the Lord. The hand of the Lord possessed him and the hand of the Lord protected him.

I'm certain of that. And I'm certain that the hand of the Lord provided for him. And I'm certain that the hand of the Lord prevented him. And I'm certain that the hand of the Lord also at times justified him and brought him through strange, strange experiences.

You read the prophecy of Ezekiel, you'll see the strange experiences through which God took Ezekiel and made him an object, a lesson for the children of Israel. And painfully too, that the hand of the Lord was upon him.

Oh, I would like, wouldn't you like, that the hand of God was upon you? And wouldn't you like that those around you may be conscious, if they're conscious of nothing else, that they're conscious of the hand of the Lord being upon them?

And this is what Jabez prayed, Oh, that thine hand might be with me. The hand of Almighty God, that he would be with me. I don't care who else is with me. I don't care about anything else. But Lord, let thy hand be with me.

And so we find that God granted him that which he requested. God's hand was placed upon his life. Are you totally? And altogether available to God in your circumstances? Can you say that your dedication or consecration to God is so complete that you are in the Lord's hands and that he can do with you whatever he wants?

Keeping the Blessing From Becoming a Snare

Then he prayed and he said, And keep me from evil. So we may say that that is a stipulation of his prayer. Keep me from evil. What did he mean? Yes, we know what it means to keep me from evil. Covetousness and these sins, these sins that we don't talk about, that are not obvious to others, all the external ones, OK, maybe we won't be blamed for these.

But out of the heart of man proceedeth evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, lasciviousness, lust, and all these things. Keep me from evil. Now, isn't it strange that he links his prayer that precedes this with this request at the end?

Because he has asked. He has asked to be blessed indeed. He has asked for enlargement of cost. He has asked that the hand of God might be upon him. And God granted him all that. And now he asks that he will be kept from evil.

I was thinking of that just the other day, and a thought suddenly struck me that hadn't struck me before, and it was this, that everything that Jabez asked of God could become a temptation to evil. Have you ever thought of that?