The situation that was trying to pin you to the map that you thought was working against you was actually God working for you.

Dr. Tony Evans says even though God will use hard times to get us ready to benefit from his blessings, it's up to us to participate in the process.

God has given you the authority to determine how things will work out.

This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans.

There's an old saying, cheaters never prosper.

But today, Dr. Evans tells us about one cheater who did prosper.

Once God took him through a process of challenge, change, and growth.

Let's turn to Genesis chapter 32 as he begins.

What you and I are witnessing today is not a lost generation.

What we're witnessing today is the product of a lost generation. What we're witnessing today is the product of a lost generation.

What we're witnessing is the transference of a curse rather than the transference of the blessing.

Today I want to talk to you, primarily men, but it will apply to all of us in various ways about one such man who wanted to turn a curse into a blessing.

In the Bible, in the Old Testament, when the Bible talks about passing on the blessing, this naming and determining the future. It would talk about God's covenant with

his people and God would say, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those three would always

be patched together because that covered grandfather, father, grandson.

I want to talk to you about Jacob.

We find that Isaac had two sons.

One son was Esau and the other son was Jacob.

The word Jacob, the name Jacob, means trickster. He was a trickster. He was a shikster.

He was a he was a duper. He was the one who would manipulate things in order to make them work

out like he wanted to. He was the one who used the human methodology to serve his own ends.

But there was one thing Jacob wanted more than anything else,

...