Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face. Selah (Psalm 24:3-6).
The Lord is a God of generations. The Lord looks on us individually, loving, providing and using us - weak and broken human beings - to accomplish His will, but He also sees us interconnected with all of the generations of past ages. When confronting error in the Saducees’ resurrection theology, He said, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:32). In giving this answer, the Lord also verifies that the Father thinks and sees generationally.
In Psalm 24:6, the word generation is the Hebrew word, “dowr.” Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words states:
“First the concrete meaning of ‘generation’ is the ‘period during which people live’: ‘And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation’” (from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright (C) 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.)
A generation is not necessarily chronologically based, but deals with the transgenerational people alive at a given time in history. We are living in the last of the last days…in the final generation that will see the return of the Lord, and the full manifestation of the sin of man and the powers of darkness. But this generation will also see the kingdom, power and authority of God manifesting in the earth. The Bible describes this end-time generation of believers as the “Jacob generation.”
Jacob was the first of his generations to enter into what would be considered the fullness of his inheritance (although still in just the beginning stage), leading up to the fulfillment and revelation in the Lord Jesus. Hebrews 11:13, 39-40 states of some of the saints of old:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth…And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.
Abraham was one of these saints who died in faith, not receiving the fullness of what was promised to him. Was God lying or playing a joke? No, of course not. Abraham did receive the promise, tasted of it, and had it partially fulfilled in his lifetime. But the complete fulfillment of the promise to Abraham came with the appearing of the promised Messiah.
So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham…that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith…And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:9, 14, 29).
We are counted in the generations of Abraham because of our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ through the new birth. With each successive generation from Abraham, God desired to release an ever-increasing dimension of the inheritance He laid up for us: spiritually, naturally and culturally. Sin, disobedience and lack of cooperation, held up the inheritance and promises until the fullness of time: when the Father found a willing remnant (Mary, Simeon, Anna, Joseph, etc.) who would agree and cooperate with Him. All of these promises are now summed up in Christ, who has destroyed the power of sin and curses over our lives so we may be a generation that fully walks in what was promised to past generations. Jacob was the first person to enter into a fuller dimension of the promises to past generations, expand it and pass it on to others, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
God thinks globally, but we tend to think and exist in our own little world. What I do in my own little world impacts the bigger world around me, either for the kingdom of God or the kingdom of darkness. Jacob was the first to see the promises of God expanded outside of an individual existence. He allowed the Lord to deal with him, change his nature and bring brokenness to his life. Subsequently, the inheritance, promises, power, and anointing were released to his twelve sons and their families. Although the Lord blesses us individually, He thinks generationally. The fullness of His power and purposes come forth, in the fullness of time, to a generation.
Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:1-3).
Did Abraham enter into the fullness of God’s purposes and promises? Did Isaac? The answer is obviously no. What God promised Abraham was so big, it was hard to believe, but believe Abraham did. He died in faith, yet not possessing the fullness of what was promised. Neither Abraham nor Isaac saw the fulfillment. The fulfillment came through Christ, the promised Seed (Gal. 3:16). But, Jacob was the first to see the promise expanded and dispersed to his whole generation. From Jacob and his family, the promise begins to expand into the nation of Israel, and then begins to touch the entire world. In the incarnation of the Lord Jesus, the fullness of the promise can now be released and embraced by every tribe, tongue and nation. (Rev. 5:9.)
It is interesting to note the prophecy given to Abraham in Gen. 15:13-16:
Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Why, after revealing His will and promises, and cutting covenant with Abraham, would God say that Abraham’s descendants would go into Egyptian slavery? The answer is: God’s accounting practices are not like man’s. Every action of the Lord carries inherent within it the purpose of glorifying and bringing honor to Himself as well as bringing greater intimacy and blessing to those who are His. (Rom. 8:28-29.) The more God is revealed and glorified, the more we are changed and blessed. (2 Cor. 3:18.) He displays His glory, power, provision, love and mercy when He reveals Himself. When He reveals Himself and looses His authority and power, justice is released, and all that has been stolen, destroyed, perverted or wounded is restored and healed. The Lord allows the sin of man and the powers of darkness to operate within certain, defined limits, because He has planned a big payback! Proverbs 6:30-31 states: People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving. Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold; he may have to give up all the substance of his house. Satan and his demonic hordes come to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10), but when the justice of the Lord is released, things are not only restored, but God’s accounting system brings a sevenfold return! This restitution comes through His restorative justice: the destruction of evil and the full release of His promised love, provision and glory to those that are His. Abraham and Jacob’s descendants are being blessed through the release of the inheritance through Jacob, yet they are allowed to go into slavery. Four hundred years later, they left Egypt as an entire nation receiving God’s covenant blessings through Jacob, with the full natural provisions of the Egyptians, sevenfold. (Proverbs 6:30-31.) Plus, at that time, the entire world came to know about Jehovah God. By the time they arrived at Jericho, they found out from Rahab:
…and said to the men: “I know that the LORD has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” (Joshua 2:9-11.)
The glory of God had been revealed to the nations of the earth through what happened to Jacob’s descendants, and the fear of the Lord rested upon the people. The promise and glory of God had expanded beyond Jacob’s descendants and the nation of Israel.
The end-time generation of which we are a part has been labeled a “Jacob generation”. This means there is a transgenerational people who will receive and release the fullness of what the Lord has been waiting to release and reveal since the promise was first made to Abraham. Every generation has had the opportunity but has fallen short. All of the unfulfilled promises, all of the generational blessings, and all of the mantles (individually, familial, cultural, geographical, tribal, national and spiritual [Eph. 1:3]) are about to be released and the glory of the Lord will cover the earth. (Numbers 14:21; Hag. 2:14.) But it will take a Jacob-like generation to see these ancient wells, storerooms and treasuries opened. The “generation of Jacob” refers to the people, regardless of age, in our day, that fully enter into the glory and inheritance of the Lord. Just like Jacob, a bulldog, passionate pursuit of the Lord and His purposes - in spite of their many weaknesses and inconsistencies - will mark them. Struggling with many issues in their lives, something continues to drive them to fully possess the manifest presence of the Lord and His full purposes in this generation. Just like Jacob, sometimes disobedient, sometimes manipulative, most of the time strong in the flesh, they refuse to give up until the glory and inheritance of the Lord are revealed and released. Just like Jacob, God will not validate their sin, but the “yes” in their heart that keeps them repenting, keeps them arising one more time, keeps them getting up when blindsided by the enemy, keeps them praying and interceding, keeps them worshipping in spite of their circumstances and pain. This is what the Lord sees and delights in, in us. (Zeph. 3:17.) God can easily change the character of the one who approaches Him in total confidence in His love and word, in spite of themselves. This generation will experience brokenness like no other, just as Jacob’s hip was put out of place and he limped the rest of his life. But it’s this pursuit in brokenness and weakness that becomes the conduit through which the glory, power and blessing of God can flow.
I am convinced, both from scripture and experience, that obedience is not the main thing necessary for revival and transformation to come to the earth. The main thing is weakness. I have obeyed the Lord many times in the strength of the flesh and I, not God, got the glory and accolades. Esau was a strong, valiant, obedient person whom God rejected because his trust in the flesh caused him to reject the blessing and inheritance of God. Jacob, although a liar, cheat and manipulator, would do anything he had to, to obtain the blessing and inheritance of God. Esau, like King Saul, would have probably made a great pastor in most of today’s churches…he was a “good” man, who loved sports and hunting, got along well with his parents, family and friends, and mostly made good, moral choices. But God rejected him. I have found it easier to get children (at a young age), former prostitutes, former drug addicts – people who have not had the trappings of a “church” mentality or religiosity – filled with and moving in the power of the Spirit than the average western church member who has been in church for any length of time. There’s something about people who have been hungry, passed through hard times or circumstances, or have had to fight for their existence, that causes a gratefulness, wonderment and desire for the Lord and His purposes that does not exist in those who have had things easy and comfortable. (Luke 7:47.) Flavius Vegetius Renatus wrote a book that eventually became the principle manual for Roman army training. Here’s a quote:
“…peasants are the most fit to carry arms for they from their infancy have been exposed to all kinds of weather and have been brought up to the hardest labor. They are able to endure the most intense heat of the sun, are unacquainted with the use of baths and are strangers to the luxuries of life. They are simple, content with little, inured to fatigue, and prepared in some measure for military life by their continual employment in farm work, in handling the spade, digging trenches and carrying burdens.”[1]
Peasants make the best soldiers.[2] The rougher the background, the better the fighter. Those who are rejected by the mainstream become the best soldiers. Trained, educated people, sometimes make the greatest compromisers and cowards. This is reflected in the apostle Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians:
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. (1 Cor. 1:26-29.)
This does not mean that those with more education and/or an easier upbringing are immediately disqualified. If this were true, then Moses would have been disqualified because he was raised as a prince in Egypt. But it does mean that those who are some of God’s mightiest champions are some the world will never recognize. When “Jacobs” are awakened to the glory, power and promises of God, they take the same zeal with which they served the devil and use it now to pursue and serve the Lord. Just like the apostle Paul who thought he was zealously serving God, but was deceived, when his heart was changed, the same fiery passion for religion was turned into a passionate zeal born of love to serve the risen Christ. This is why children and youth are so important to the raising up of this end-time army. Children don’t have as many things to “un-learn!” The oldest disciple of Jesus was about 27, and the youngest about 15. It’s not age, strength, wisdom or smarts that God is looking for; He’s looking for hungry, yielded vessels.
We live at the end of the age when both the fullness of generational curses and generational blessings will reach maturity. Because of many unfulfilled promises, anointings, callings, and blessings, because there are more people alive now in all of history, and because of our position as being the last generation, there are more accrued blessings, both earthly and spiritual than in all of history. Where are the “Jacobs?” Where are those who, in spite of their glaring weaknesses, shortcomings and inconsistencies, continue embracing whatever brokenness needs to come to see the face of God? Where are the warriors who face whatever warfare needs to be endured and overcome to release His power and blessings in the earth, not only for themselves, but also for the very creation itself? This is the generation that seeks His face and will see the King of glory enter the gates of their lives, cities and nations with His power, restorative justice and mercy.
Questions for Reflection:
Do you have a hunger to be a part of the “Jacob Generation”?
How has the Lord used weakness in you to build strength in Godly character[i]?
[1] Cited from Living in the Combat Zone, Rick Renner, Albury Publishing, Tulsa Oklahoma 1989, pp.125, 126.
[2] Ibid.
Copyright 2006 @ Lion’s Mane Publishing
This article was adapted from a chapter in Mike McClung's book, "Restoring the Ruins." For more information on this and other Lionheart Restoration Ministries resources, click here.
This article was adapted from a chapter in Mike McClung's book, "Restoring the Ruins." For more information on this and other Lionheart Restoration Ministries resources, click here.
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