Benjamin Generation (2 page)

He is telling us to remove the law. Don’t play around with the law. Don’t listen to people who preach the law. The law brings death. When the law was first given, 3,000 people died. (Exodus 32:28) But the Spirit gives life. When God poured out His Spirit on Pentecost, 3,000 people were born again! (Acts 2:41) By showing us how Sarah and Hagar represent the two covenants, Paul set a precedent for the use of types and symbols. In the same way, God is painting a picture of Benjamin as a symbol or type of the end-time church. And I believe He did it because He wants us to know that before Jesus comes again, He will raise up a generation of grace, a generation who knows His unmerited favor And all that is possible because Jesus became the Son of sorrow so that we can be sons of God’s right hand, sons of His favor

God Wants Us Blessed

We now know that the Benjamin Generation is the end-time generation. And we have also established that Benjamin typifies grace. But why does God want a generation of grace in these end times?

I believe it is because God found fault with the first covenant of law. That’s the reason why Jesus came to establish a new covenant of grace. Paul said, “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: ‘Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers… (Hebrews 8:7–9) Aren’t you glad that God found fault with the old covenant? Under the old covenant, you are blessed only if you obey. And if you fail to obey just one law, you are guilty of breaking all the laws! James said it this way, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:10)

God found fault with that because you and I know that under such a covenant, it is not possible for anyone to be blessed. Paul also made it clear that the old law was not functioning — “He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:13) Thankfully, because the old covenant is now obsolete, God does not apply it to us today. It is old and outdated! So if you are still striving to abide by the old covenant, you are missing out on God’s blessing because God has given us a new covenant.

In these end times, if you insist on holding on to the old covenant, you are missing out on God’s blessing.

God says that the new covenant will not be like the old. In what way is it not like the old? Well, under the old covenant, if you obey the laws, you are blessed.

And you must obey all the laws to be blessed. Some people try to explain the old covenant to me this way, “Pastor Prince, God just wants us to try our best to keep whatever law we can.” My friend, if you believe that, then you don’t understand the holiness of God.

If you want to be under the old covenant or the covenant of law, then you have to obey all the laws.

You cannot pick and choose. You cannot say, “This law is not a problem for me, it’s easy, I can obey it.

But this one over here is quite difficult, I think God will understand if I don’t obey it.”

In Leviticus 19:37, God said, “Therefore you shall observe all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them: I am the Lord.” When God says all, He means all! You cannot pick and choose which laws to obey.

Now, do you understand why God found fault with the old covenant? There is no way we can be blessed if we are under this covenant. That is why Jesus brought in the new covenant. And by the way, you cannot mix the two covenants. You have to choose between the two. You are either under one or the other.

This new covenant is not like the old covenant.

Under the old covenant, you are blessed only if you obey. But under the new covenant, you and I are blessed because of Jesus’ obedience at the cross. And He obeyed perfectly. That is why God can pour the fullness of His blessings on us.

If you try to fulfill the law to be blessed,

you will become tired because you have

to depend on your own efforts.

Aren’t you glad that He has established the new covenant? Isn’t God good? He wants a generation of grace because it is only through the covenant of grace that He can pour His blessings on us, the Benjamin end-time generation.

Grace Brings Blessings, The Law Blinds
The life of Benjamin’s mother Rachel is a picture of how we the Benjamin Generation will experience God’s blessings through His undeserved favor Rachel symbolizes the covenant of grace. Leah, who is Rachel’s sister and Benjamin’s stepmother, symbolizes the covenant of law.

Leah or Le’ah in Hebrew, means “weary”. In other words, the law makes you weary. If you try to obtain your blessings through the law, you will never make it. If you try to fulfill the law to be blessed, you will become tired because you have to depend on your own efforts.

On the other hand, Rachel means “ewe” or “female sheep”. Her name is a picture of grace. It is a picture of how we are favored by God today because Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb of God, took our place on the cross. On that cross, Jesus exhausted the full wrath of God for us. He took our beating so that we can receive His blessings.

Today, we can expect God’s blessings not because of what we have or have not done, but because of what He has done. That, my friend, is grace.

Now, the opposite is true when you put yourself under the law. Look at the life of Jacob. He had two women in his life — Rachel and Leah. He loved Rachel, but he was tricked by his father-in-law Laban into marrying Leah.

How did that happen? How did he marry the wrong woman? It was because Jacob did not unveil the bride! He was in a hurry! The next morning, when he woke up beside Leah, he would have screamed, “Aaaah!” Leah with make-up on was not very pretty, but Leah first thing in the morning without make-up was much worse! No wonder today, it is a tradition for the minister to say, “You may now unveil the bride!” It ensures that the groom marries the right girl, right?

Stop trying to obey the law to be blessed.

But there is a deeper meaning here. What does the veil represent? The veil is a picture of the law. The Bible declares in 2 Corinthians 3:14, “But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.”

Can you see how Jacob was robbed of the love of his life by Laban? Jacob did not unveil the bride, so he was blinded. This tells us that the law blinds us. It causes us to be dispossessed. It causes us to be robbed of God’s blessing. What’s the solution?

Remove the veil! Stop looking to the law to be justified. Stop trying to obey the law to be blessed.

God Loves Grace

Rachel’s life also teaches us something else — it is a picture of how God loves grace, not law. You see, Leah was born first, so Rachel came after Leah. In the same way, grace came after the law.

Now, just because Jacob married two women, please don’t say that I approve of men having two wives! Let me tell you that when you have two women in your life, you are in trouble! Please, don’t have two wives.

In the past, God allowed this. But in this case, God is pointing to these two women as representing two different things — law and grace.

Some of you may ask, “Does God love the law or grace?” Well, if you want the answer, just look at the lives of these two women. Jacob loved Rachel, not Leah. Likewise, God loves grace, not the law.

Remember that the Bible says that Leah was not pretty, but it says that Rachel was. Rachel was beautiful. Now, don’t get me wrong. God is not saying that He dislikes ugly people. Not at all! He is simply showing us that the glory of grace surpasses that of the law. (2 Corinthians 3:7–11) I know that the law is holy, but I also know that grace is beautiful. God does not love the law, He loves grace. And although He has to execute justice, although He has to enforce the law, above all, what God loves is grace and mercy. That is why He did away with the covenant of law and sent His Son to take our punishment. He did that so that we can experience His grace, His undeserved favor
God Specializes In Miraculous Turnarounds
God’s grace applies to our lives today. If you need God to intervene in your life right now, He can do it!

Look what He did to Benjamin. In Genesis 45, we see that by His grace, God turned around every negative circumstance in the lives of Benjamin and his family.

That’s how He can also bring about supernatural turnarounds in our lives today. If you are experiencing disease or debt, if you have a rebellious son or a wayward daughter, whatever your situation, don’t be anxious about it. God specializes in miraculous turnarounds.

Joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit and he later landed in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. If anyone had a good reason to be anxious, it was Joseph. But God turned all these events around in his favor Joseph went to the pit and then to prison, but God’s grace placed him in the palace!

After Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery, they began to regret what they had done. They began to feel guilty. During the famine, they went to Egypt to get food. There, they came face-to-face with their long-lost brother, Joseph. But they did not recognize him. After all, it had been 20 years!

Joseph later told them that he wanted Simeon to remain with him while the rest of the brothers returned home to get Benjamin. When this happened, Joseph’s brothers thought their sin had finally found them out. They were at a loss because they knew that this would cause great anguish to their father. But by God’s grace, He prospered even their mistake.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that it is all right to be jealous of your brothers and to sell them out.

No, what I am saying is that God can override the evil of man, and introduce His own purpose and plan into any situation. Though Joseph’s brothers meant evil against him, God turned it around for good.

(Genesis 50:20) By selling Joseph into slavery, they were actually giving him a free trip to the land where he would later save them all from famine.

Now, please don’t follow Joseph’s story to the letter.

Please don’t go out and say, “Well, I’m going to do something bad to someone so that God can turn it around for good.” That is not how God works. In fact, when we fall into sin, when we make mistakes, it can hurt people. But God by His grace can override even all these. Isn’t that beautiful? He really puts the amazing back into grace!

Listen to Joseph’s words to his brothers. His words were like music to their ears: Genesis 45:5,7–8

5But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life… 7And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

8So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

As for Jacob, when he was told that Benjamin had been summoned to Egypt, he was beside himself. He did not want to give up Benjamin whom he had fathered with Rachel. Remember Rachel was the wife whom he loved. With Joseph and Simeon gone, there was no way he would give up this son. He cried out, “All these things are against me.” (Genesis 42:36) Little did he know that Joseph, his beloved son, was actually planning all this for him. Though he did not know it, God was working behind the scenes for his good.

When you are in the midst of a recession, all you see are financial obstacles. But God sees your problem as a divine opportunity for good. God may see your problem as a divine opportunity for promotion, salary increase or new business clients.

Jacob thought that everything was working against him. That’s the way he saw it. But in actual fact, the end result was that Pharaoh reserved the best of the land for him! God had everything planned for Jacob.

And everything worked together for his good.

He delights in loving-kindness. He loves

to show grace to His people.

My friend, God’s favor and grace will deliver the same for you. Know that if you put God first and trust in Him, whatever you are going through will work out in your favor Your life is not an accident.

You may have been born out of wedlock, but God loves you and He has a special plan for you.

Joseph’s life was amazing. He went from the pit to the palace! God really turned everything around for Joseph. It was an extreme change in circumstances.

Pharaoh trusted him so much that he put everything under Joseph’s charge and gave him the name Zaphnath-Paaneah (Genesis 41:45), which means “saviour of the world”. So Joseph literally went from being slave to saviour of the world. God promoted him so that he could preserve a posterity for His people.

What God did for Joseph, He can do for us. What God did for Benjamin and his family, He can also do for us, the Benjamin Generation. And all this will happen not because we deserve it, but because He delights in loving-kindness. He loves to show grace to His people.

A 180-Degree Change

I have many people in my church whose lives will testify to how God’s grace brings radical turnarounds. We have a brother in our church who was once a hopeless drunk. He was on the verge of divorce when he came to our church and received Christ as his Saviour. His marriage had broken down beyond repair. Because he was a manager in the food and beverage industry, drinking was an occupational requirement that went from being a hazard to an addiction. He also smoked like a chimney, puffing up to 40 cigarettes a day.

After becoming a Christian in 1999, he tried to break free from the bottle, but he found that he couldn’t.

This brother had begun drinking when he was 15

and so he felt it would be impossible to quit.

One day, he heard me share a testimony of how another brother, who had been bound to the same addiction, had experienced total deliverance from alcohol. For the first time, he began to entertain the possibility of becoming dry, of breaking the addiction.