It’s Not Over
June 29, 2008
Scripture:
Genesis 49:19 - “Gad, a troop shall tramp upon him, but he shall triumph at last.”
Synopsis:
Fatigue and faulty living has driven many pastors in America from the ministry at a rate of 15-hundred to 2-thousand a month. This trend stems from the unwillingness of American believers to embrace the humanity of their church leadership. Americans have been deceived by religion into thinking that their leaders must meet their needs and at the same time be perfect and blameless. This mass exodus of pastors has caused many to just about give up on the American church completely. But the truth of the matter is that the influence of the church in America is far from over. This is just a chapter in the American church story. The same is true for any believer who has experience failure in life and is considering giving up. Transition and change brought on by fault and failure is just the end of one chapter in your life story. The book is not over.
Just like a Global Positioning System or GPS, God often times recalculates and redirects our lives after we have made mistakes or taken wrong turns. He is committed to getting us to our preordained destiny if we just don’t give up. Times of recalculation and redirection are not fun times that make us feel good about ourselves. In fact they can be very depressing. But ultimately they will be liberating, freeing us from our past by bringing closure to an unpleasant chapter in our lives.
In today’s text Jacob is prophesying to his son Gad. Gad is Jacob’s seventh son which is the number of completion or ending. In this prophesy Jacob describes how Gad will be overcome by a “troop” which means a strategic array designed to bring an end. But at the end of the prophesy Jacob sees Gad getting up from the ashes of defeat to ultimately overcome what has been sent to overwhelm him. This prophesy is a picture of the circumstances surrounding the American church today as a whole and each of us as individuals. Our story is part of the overall story of the church and Jesus has already declared that the “gates of hell shall not prevail” against his church. So we can confidently say this chapter has ended, but the story is not over.
