I Chronicles 4:9  And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.
10  And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.

God gave us these verses to remind us that He will always have His remnant of believers in this world. In our text, we are looking at the genealogical record of the nation of Israel. God revealed His plan through Abram and Sarai. God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah. He demonstrated His authority over man. However, God does not take just any man. He gives all people the opportunity to choose to know Him and follow Him. Few humble themselves and follow God.
God began to build His nation out of Abraham and Sarah. We can read all about that in the book of Genesis. God reminded Abraham several times of His promise to bless him and make of him a great nation. Not only that, but He promised that all nations would be blessed through Abraham. Abraham never saw the most treasured aspect of that promise until he was 100 years old. He was promised a son. In order for him to become a great nation, he would need to have children. God gave him one son to fulfil His promise to Abraham. God tested Abraham’s resolve to follow Him faithfully with that son. Abraham passed the test and God continued to build His promise through Isaac.
The name Jabez means “sorrow”. We are told that his mother chose this name for her son because she bore him with sorrow. We are not told what the sorrow was there, but she was directed by God to give Jabez this name.
We are also told that Jabez was more honourable than his brethren. We see that what made Jabez honourable was that he called upon the God of Israel. We are also told what he called upon Him for. He was different than his brethren. It is honourable to understand the need to trust in the true God. Jabez understood some things that most people never accept. We cannot improve on what God has designed for us. We are all born as lost sinners. For 6,000 years most people have tried to figure out how to live successfully without God. A few have turned to God as Jabez did and been blessed by God in doing so.
God has recorded the history of many nations, including Israel, as they tried to succeed without Him. In every case, it has been a failure. There are nations that are mentioned in the Bible, that do not even exist any longer. There are cultures within nations today that are fighting to survive. In Canada we have the French who are fighting to survive. They are more concerned about their French language, than they are about their eternity.
One of the blessings that happened among the French in Quebec some years back is that they rejected the Catholic dominance under which they had lived for many, many years. The problem has been that they ‘jumped from the frying pan into the fire’. They want to be a completely secular society, but they do not realize that there is no such thing as a secular society. Every society has some form of religion. For the French, they worship their language and their culture. They assume they are superior to other cultures and want to force their ideologies upon the rest of us. Canada bowed to this evil and we are a bilingual nation and if you want to work in the federal system, you are required to speak both languages. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on this bilingual system.
Getting back to our text, we see that Jabez chose a different course than was common to man. He chose to call upon the God of Israel. God often reminds us that Israel is to be a nation that serves the One true God. We know this One true God is three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The last two letters of the name Israel are “el”. That is a name of God. The Bible speaks of Elohim, and El Shaddai and many other names of God. We do not see that in our English King James Bible, but as we study to show ourselves approved unto God, we will see that through the use of a good concordance. These names all describe different aspects of the true God.
Jabez was wise in choosing to call upon the God (Elohim) of Israel. His request was that his coast would be enlarged. Jabez wanted to have a godly impact within Israel. He was not a greedy, power hungry man. His desire was to be a blessing to his people.
He wanted God’s hand to be with him. That is also an important prayer to make. When God’s hand is guiding me, I cannot go wrong. When I push His hand away, I will go wrong. In fact I am already going wrong when I try to push His hand away from me. The good news for the true child of God is that we are held in the Father’s hand. We cannot push that hand away. We can try to resist the direction of that hand, but our gracious and loving God will not allow His child to remain in rebellion. He will chasten him to bring him back into line with His will.
Jabez prayed that God would keep him from evil. Jabez understood that evil would grieve him. It is a grief to God, and evil is also a grief to a true child of God. Every true child of God will understand this. There have been choices we have made that were contrary to God’s will. We have been resistant to following God’s will and tried to venture out on our own. We have discovered that was the wrong thing to do and we got hurt going our own way. God is merciful and willing to forgive the repentant saint. However, there will be scarring that will be a reminder of the importance of listening to God.
We read in our text that God granted Jabez’ request. This is to be expected from the true and loving God. He loves to answer the prayers of His obedient children.
I remember the time when a man named Bruce Wilkinson took the verses we have as our text and he apparently had been preaching on them in his Pentecostal church. In the year 2,000 he chose to turn those messages into a small book. That book took off and sold 8 million copies in the first year. A Bible study companion was put out for this book. As is typical of this type of thing, people would meet in coffee shops and talk in the streets about this book. The book became the focus of attention for a number of years. It was not the Bible that was the centre of attention, it was this book. That is the typical response of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. They exalt a personality and his or her “accomplishments”. That is why that movement is so full of heretical teaching and practices.
Some one will take a thought or a verse from the Bible and expand upon it in a corrupted manner and gullible people who do not bother to pay attention to Biblical context run with what somebody imagines and it becomes another ditch that blind people fall into.
This prayer is an important prayer. It is not a prayer to be turned into a ritual. It is a prayer that must come from an honourable man who truly calls upon the true God. The God of Israel is described for us in great detail, throughout the Bible. The nation of Israel has rarely bowed to this true God. Individuals have but not the nation. They certainly are not bowing to Him now. The Bible tells us that they will do so as a nation in the future.
The point here is that any individual can choose to follow the true God. No one is hopelessly bound by the ungodliness that surrounds all of us. We are all born as lost sinners. We choose to sin because of our sin nature. However, that sin nature does not prevent us from hearing God’s call to repent and be saved. Jabez chose to be different than his brethren. He was in a minority, but that did not hinder him from calling upon the God of Israel. His prayer was not a selfish prayer. He wanted to be able to bless those around him. His name is mentioned by God because he chose to follow God. However, Jabez did not seek to make a name for himself. God blessed him and we can read these few verses today and be reminded that we can choose to know the true God and be a blessing to others as well as we submit to His will. It is important to choose to be an honourable person.
Pastor Bartel