The scripture reading this morning is in Genesis
chapter 32.
Genesis chapter 32 and we're going to read
the entire chapter.
You'll remember in the life of Jacob, Jacob
has now been called back to the land
by the Lord and he is on his
way and now in anticipation of meeting Esau
again, we read in chapter 32 verse 1.
Now as Jacob went on his way, the
angels of God met him and Jacob said
when he saw them, this is God's camp.
So he named that place Mahanaim or Mahanaim.
Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his
brother Esau in the land of Seir, the
country of Edom.
He also commanded them saying, thus you shall
say to my Lord Esau, thus says your
servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban and
stayed until now and I have oxen and
donkeys and flocks and male and female servants
and I have sent to tell my Lord
that I may find favor in your sight.
And the messengers returned to Jacob saying, we
came to your brother Esau and furthermore he
is coming to meet you and 400 men
are with him.
Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed and
he divided the people who were with him
and the flocks and the herds and the
camels into two companies for he said, if
Esau comes to the one company and attacks
it, then the company which is left will
escape.
And Jacob said, oh God of my father
Abraham and God of my father Isaac, oh
Lord, who didst say to me, return to
your country and to your relatives and I
will prosper you.
I am unworthy of all the loving kindness
and of all the faithfulness which thou hast
shown to thy servant.
For with my staff only I crossed this
Jordan and now I have become two companies.
Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of
my brother, from the hand of Esau.
For I fear him lest he come and
attack me, the mothers with the children.
For thou didst say, I will surely prosper
you and make your descendants as the sand
of the sea, which cannot be numbered for
multitude.
So he spent the night there.
Then he selected from what he had with
him a present for his brother Esau, 200
female goats and 20 male goats, 200 ewes
and 20 rams, 30 milking camels and their
coats, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female
donkeys and 10 male donkeys.
And he delivered them into the hand of
his servants, every drove by itself and said
to his servants, pass on before me and
put a space between droves.
Now this was a rather large gift because
there were over 500 animals that were to
be given.
So evidently Jacob has become a very wealthy
man in the years that he has spent
in Haran.
Notice also that he reserves his position for
the inn.
Now that was contrary to the custom of
shepherds.
They usually in the east went before their
flocks and so it is clear that he
is doing this for political reasons.
He wants the animals to appear first.
He wants them to appear in droves in
separate divisions.
So he may impress Esau.
And by the time Jacob arrives, Esau may
be to some extent appeased by the gift
that he is being given.
The 17th verse we read, and he commended
the one in front saying, when my brother
Esau meets you and asks you saying, to
whom do you belong and where are you
going?
And to whom do these animals in front
of you belong?
Then you shall say, these belong to your
servant, Jacob.
It is a present sent to my Lord
Esau and behold, he also is behind us.
Then he commanded also the second and the
third and all those who followed the drove
saying, after this manner, you shall speak to
Esau when you find him.
And you shall say, behold, your servant, Jacob,
also is behind us.
For he said, I will appease him with
the present that goes before me.
Then afterward, I will see his face.
Perhaps he will accept me.
So the present passed on before him while
he himself spent that night in the camp.
Now he arose that same night and took
his two wives and his two maids and
his eleven children and crossed the ford of
the Jabbok.
And he took them and sent them across
the stream and he sent across whatever he
had.
Then Jacob was left alone and a man
wrestled with him until daybreak.
You can see there was a lengthy period
of time that this rest in which this
wrestling took place.
And when he saw that he had not
prevailed against him, that is when he, the
angel, saw that he had not prevailed against
him, Jacob, he, the angel, touched the socket
of his Jacob's thigh.
So the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated
while he wrestled with him.
Then he, that is the angel, then he
said, let me go for the dawn is
breaking.
But he, Jacob, but he said, I will
not let you go unless you bless me.
So he said to him, what is your
name?
And he said, Jacob.
And he said, your name shall no longer
be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven
with God and with men and have prevailed.
The term Israel for a lengthy period of
time was thought to mean a prince with
God because of the relationship between the word
Israel and Sarah, which means, or Sar, which
means a prince, Sarah, a princess.
Most students of the Old Testament now feel
that this word comes from another word that
means to strive.
And consequently this means God's fighter, or perhaps
may God fight for him.
So Israel, for you have striven with God,
God's fighter, or may God fight for him.
You have striven with God and with men.
That's a reference of course, in the local
context to Esau and have prevailed.
Then Jacob asked him and said, please tell
me your name.
But he said, why is it that you
asked my name?
And he blessed him there.
That is he, the angel blessed Jacob there.
So Jacob named the place Penal for he
said, I have seen God face to face
yet.
My life has been preserved.
Now, of course, this tells us that this
was not an angel, but was the angel
of Jehovah.
The angel of Jehovah is the second person
of the Trinity.
He appeared as the angel of Jehovah before
the incarnation.
It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is a theophany, an appearance of God.
This morning after the meeting, someone asked me,
what is a theophany?
Well, the term theophany comes from two Greek
words, theos, which means God.
And the funny part comes from the word
phaino in Greek, which means to appear or
to seem.
And, uh, epiphany is an appearance.
So a theophany is an appearance of God
in human form or in another form.
And in this case, in the form of
an angelic being, the angel of Jehovah also
is an appearance as a man.
I should have mentioned here because it says
a man wrestled with him.
Now these theophanies in the old Testament, we've
already seen there, there are already a number
of them in the book of Genesis, right
in the beginning of the unfolding of the
divine revelation.
And as I've said from time to time,
they are intended by God to prepare Israel
for the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So they would not be surprised when God
appeared as a human being.
So there is no excuse for Israel and
others stumbling over the appearance of God in
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now Christianity is a monotheistic religion.
That is, we believe there is one God,
but we believe that he subsists in three
persons.
So Christians are monotheists, but they also are
Trinitarian.
Now this was designed to prepare them for
that so that they would not stumble over
the three persons of the Trinity.
Of course, we know from history that Israel
has stumbled over that.
They have failed to respond to Christianity, claiming
they are monotheistic.
Mohammedans likewise, who base a great deal of
their own views on scriptural facts, they too
have stumbled over this.
But God was patiently unfolding through the theophanies
the possibility of a divine appearance among men.
And of course, when the time came, the
word became flesh and dwelt among us and
we beheld his glory.
The apostle John says, no man has seen
God at any time.
The only begotten son who is in the
bosom of the father, he has led him
forth into full revelation.
So this is a theophany, an appearance of
God.
Therefore, we read in verse 30, I have
seen God face to face, yet my life
has been preserved.
Now the sun rose upon him just as
he crossed over Penuel.
That's the other name for Penal, Penuel.
And he was limping on his thigh.
Therefore, to this day, the sons of Israel
do not eat the sinew of the hip,
which is on the socket of the thigh,
because he touched the socket of Jacob's thigh
in the sinew of the hip.
Now I'm going to turn over to the
book of Hosea for just a moment.
And if you want to try to find
that chapter, you can.
It's the 12th chapter of the book.
And I want to read just a comment
that the prophet Hosea makes, since it touches
on this particular chapter.
Now the prophet in Hosea chapter 12 is
berating the nation Israel because of their disobedience
and their desire to make a covenant with
Assyria.
And he says in the second verse of
chapter 12 of Hosea, the Lord also had,
has a dispute with Judah and will punish
Jacob according to his ways.
Now Jacob is the name for Israel that
reminds Israel of Israel's crookedness, Israel's disobedience, Israel
being like Jacob before his experience at Penal.
And then that reminds the prophet of the
life of Jacob.
And he reminds Israel in Hosea's day, Hosea
does of Jacob in order to show Israel
later on that he can do for the
nation what he did for Jacob in the
beginning, after whom the nation is following.
So we read in verse three of Hosea
12, in the womb, he took his brother
by the heel and in his maturity, he
contended with God.
Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed.
He wept and sought his favor.
Notice that clause, he wept and sought his
favor.
That's not found in the book of Genesis.
He found him at Bethel.
This is not the first appearance at Bethel,
but the later one in chapter 35.
And there he spoke with us.
Then look at verse 12.
Now Jacob fled to the land of Aram,
that is to Haran and Israel worked for
a wife and for a wife, he kept
sheep.
So the life of Jacob is brought by
the prophet Hosea to the attention of the
nation in their later apostasy to remind them
of what he could do for Israel.
May the Lord bless this reading of his
word.
Our subject this morning is Penal from Supplanter
to Prevailer.
The life of Jacob, it has been pointed
out is deftly summarized in Hosea chapter 12
and verse three.
In the womb, he took his brother by
the heel and in his manhood, he strove
with God.
Now, if we put between those two lines
of Hosea chapter 12 verse three, the lines
of verse 12 of that same chapter, Jacob
fled, Jacob did service for a wife, Jacob
herded sheep, then in the principal statements, we
can trace the successive concerns of Jacob, his
brother, a wife, and then God.
And in the actions, you can trace a
rather rough path from Jacob's, in Jacob's journey
from immaturity to maturity.
He took his brother by the heel, he
was still in the womb, he fled, he
served Laban in Haran, he shepherded sheep, he
strove with God, and he prevailed.
In fact, Jacob had two names.
He had the name Jacob, that comes from
a word that means to take by the
heel.
And then he had the name Israel, and
that comes from a word that means to
strive and thus to prevail.
And so here we have the beginning and
the end of his spiritual pilgrimage in one
sense.
We have him taking by the heel, supplanting,
and now he becomes God's fighter.
And from this point on in Jacob's life,
you'll see a difference.
Now, I think as you look back over
Jacob's life, you might wonder why God chose
Jacob.
Well, you might wonder why he chose Abraham
and Isaac too, because they were very human.
You might even wonder why Jesus, wonder why
Jesus Christ chose the apostles.
And it might be even a more startling
thing to you to realize that he prayed
all night before he chose the disciples, the
apostles.
One might even ask, did the Lord Jesus
Christ make good choices?
Because after all, he chose one who was
a denier.
He chose another who was a betrayer.
He chose still another who came to be
noted for his doubt.
And he also chose two dirty politicians, James
and John, who sought to do Peter out
of his place around the table of the
Lord.
He chose a cursor.
He chose violent men who were called the
sons of thunder.
But now, of course, the layer of tradition
down through the centuries has been piled on
these men.
And so what do we call these men
now?
Well, we call them St. John, St. Peter,
St. Thomas.
But really, they were birds.
Now, the patriarchs were similar men.
They were just like that too.
But the layer of tradition tends to make
us think of them as great saints throughout
all their lives.
But they were not.
They were men very much like ourselves.
Esau, of course, we know he was kind
of man we would have liked.
He would be middle linebacker.
He was a likable kind of guy.
He's probably of the original of that statement.
He's a jolly good fellow.
Jacob, on the other hand, is the kind
of man you would not have chosen.
Ceaseless, restless in his activity, always doing something.
I can just imagine Isaac being very disturbed
at that little boy, watching him constantly move
until finally he would just say, Jacob, for
goodness sakes, a penny if you'll just keep
still.
But that's the way he is, just constantly
moving.
But he moves from being a crafty supplanter,
a crook, to a spiritual giant.
Like almost all the saints down through the
centuries, the way to spiritual heights for Jacob
leads through the valley of humiliation.
Jacob made no attempt to avoid it.
You can say that for him.
He did not seek to avoid the meeting
with Esau.
And while he did not know the text
of Scripture that our Lord speaks in the
Sermon on the Mount, he illustrates, first be
reconciled to thy brother, then take your gift
and offer it.
Because he realized that he must deal ultimately
with Esau.
Now he went out of his way to
do it because Esau lived in the land
of Edom.
He didn't have to think of himself as
going to Edom.
But nevertheless, he went out of his way
because I'm sure that deep down in his
heart he was disturbed over the fact that
he had left Esau under unfavorable circumstances.
And for twenty years there had, in his
heart, been that anxious thought, what about Esau
and my relationship to him?
The Bible says, be sure your sins will
find you out.
And that is certainly true.
Because no matter how we try, we can
never avoid our sins.
And when we commit them, there is always
the anxiety.
We may seek to cover it over with
various forms of activity, but sooner or later
it surfaces again, our sins.
And so here Jacob goes out of his
way in order to seek out Esau to
be sure that he is going to have
a relationship with him as he's now coming
back into the land.
The chief subject of the chapter, however, is
the struggle of Jacob with the will of
God.
And that is played out in this last
part of the chapter when he wrestles with
the angel.
To put it theologically, here is the struggle
of nature and grace.
Here's the struggle of the human and the
divine.
Here's the struggle of self-effort versus God's
enabling.
Here's the struggle of man with his incurable
heart and God, the only one who can
cure human hearts.
The heart is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked.
Who can understand it?
The prophet Jeremiah speaks.
And this is one thing that we all
have to ultimately find out, that the heart
of man is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked and is beyond our understanding in
its wickedness.
Only sovereign grace can touch the human heart.
Only sovereign grace can reduce us to helplessness
from our arrogant self-esteem and cause us
to cling to him who is our shield
and strength and from whom ultimately and only
comes victory.
This incidentally is not the day of Jacob's
salvation.
So far as we can tell, Jacob was
a believer.
But like most believers in the earlier part
of their life, Jacob is a double-minded
man.
He has a love for God, but he
has also his own sin principle dwelling within
him and he follows that too.
So he's a man who is disturbed by
two things, the interests of God and the
interests of Jacob, and that struggle is going
on within.
He's a man who is in the midst
of the great struggle that Paul describes in
Romans chapter 7 and seems to be a
stage of life in which some believers stay
for their whole lifetime, unfortunately.
What this is is the day of dedication.
It's the day in which Jacob comes to
a new understanding of how the believing life
is to be lived, and it's an experience
that every Christian should have.
So it's an important, critical event.
Chapter 32, fortunately, is a rather simple chapter
in its divisions.
It has three parts corresponding to the parts
of this memorable day.
A day begins in the morning, then there's
the evening, and then there's the night.
And we have here a morning, and then
we have an afternoon, and then we have
a night.
And in the morning, he has the vision
of the angels.
In the afternoon, he makes preparation for meeting
Esau, and then at night, God prepares him
for meeting Esau.
So it was a memorable day and a
very critical time in Jacob's life.
We read in the morning, now as Jacob
went on his way, the angels of God
met him.
Now, most of the commentators of the book
of Genesis lay a little bit of stress
on the expression, as Jacob went on his
way.
He had been called by God to go
back to the west, to the land.
And most of the commentators, and I think
rightly, point out that as Jacob went on
his way, that is, as he obeyed, then
the angels of God met him.
In other words, the response of faith brings
a response on the part of the Lord
God.
And there is a spiritual principle in that.
When he speaks to us and commands us
to do certain things, as we by grace
respond, he responds to us.
It reminds me of the incident of the
healing of the lepers in the life of
our Lord.
In Luke chapter 17, we read, and when
he saw them, he said to them, go
and show yourselves to the priest.
And it came about that as they were
going, they were cleansed.
So as they responded to the word of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the healing ministry of
God came to them.
As Jacob went on his way, the angels
of God met him.
The purpose of the angels is to assure
Jacob that God is with him.
And Jacob names the place Mahanaim, or two
camps, because he recognizes that he has a
camp of people, his family and his flocks
and herds and his helpers.
But he realizes that he's not traveling alone,
that the angels of God are traveling with
him.
In the psalmist, in the Psalms, Psalm 34
and verse 7, we read about the angel
of God encamping round about his saints and
keeping them.
Well this is Jacob's realization of the truthfulness
of it.
And we are taught here, as we are
taught through the Bible, that the angels are
ministering servants sent forth for those who are
the heirs of salvation.
It was God's way of encouraging Jacob.
Now you would think perhaps that a man
who was encouraged by an angelic visitation would
manifest great faith, but after all, Jacob is
just like us.
He's just like us.
We have all the promises of God.
We even have the promise, lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of
the age.
And in the experiences of life, we, like
Jacob, turn to maneuvering and scheming and stratagems,
seeking to accomplish the will of God in
our own strength.
We have, it is so difficult for human
beings to learn that lesson, it seems.
Well God gave him encouragement, but that does
not help Jacob a great deal.
What a difference between God's messengers who encourage
Jacob and Jacob's messengers who seek out Esau
and try to find out the lay of
the land.
We read in verse 3, then Jacob sent
messengers before him to his brother Esau in
the land of Seir.
Jacob gave them some instructions.
He says, you say to my Lord, notice
the servile language that Jacob uses with reference
to Esau.
He didn't have to do that.
My Lord Esau, thus says your servant Jacob.
Later on he repeats that.
It makes one wonder if Jacob has had
any real repentance over his treatment of Esau
or his relationship to Esau.
At any rate, he sent the messengers off
and when the messengers came back, they came
back with an alarming report.
There was absolute silence about Esau's relationship to
Jacob.
Jacob could not tell from the report whether
Esau would be reconciled to him or not.
He was simply told, we came to your
brother Esau and furthermore, he's coming to meet
you.
And 400 men are with him.
And the 400 men, of course, alarm Jacob
considerably because he thinks that perhaps they're coming
for battle.
And so characteristically, energetically, forgetting the presence of
the angels with him, he makes his plans.
He schemes a little bit.
Now all through this section incidentally, it's been
pointed out by the students of it, that
he will plan and pray, plan and pray,
plan and pray.
Now that's all right.
It's all right to make plans.
It's all right to be sensible.
After all, a person should be sensibly cautious.
One of the reasons John Knox was able
to do the work that he did in
Scotland was because he was sensibly cautious.
There have been a number of men who
were martyrs unnecessarily.
Now we regard them highly because they were
martyrs for the testimony to the Lord Jesus
Christ.
But one wonders if they had perhaps been
a little more cautious, they might have lived
a little longer to do work for the
Lord.
One thing about Knox, when you study Knox
and you'll see that one of the reasons
that he had the influence in Scotland that
he had, which persists to a small degree
even today, one of the reasons was that
when trouble came, Knox went into hiding.
And when Mary was there and sought his
life, he didn't mind fleeing.
He would flee and then he would come
back to serve again.
And the result was that he finally won
the struggle for Scotland and Scotland became a
nation that followed the Reformation because he was
a cautious reformer.
So it's all right to be cautious, it's
all right to be sensible, but we must,
of course, put our ultimate trust in the
Lord.
And Jacob, at this point, it appears that
he's putting his trust in his scheming.
In the seventh verse, he gave instructions to
divide the people and the flocks and the
herds and the camels into two companies because
he said if there are two of us,
if he attacks one company, then the other
will escape.
That was sensible.
And then he turned to prayer, which was
even more sensible.
Now one thing about Jacob, if you'll look
in the preceding sections, you'll discover that he
doesn't pray a whole lot in the immediately
preceding section of his life.
This is almost as if he were returning
to the kind of life that may have
characterized him at one time.
I rather think one of the commentators made
a statement that rather made me think of
Samson, who you'll remember finally told the secret
of his strength that it lay in his
hair and when it was cut off, he
became weak just like any other man.
But unfortunately, the Philistines forgot that.
I have often said I would have assigned
a hairstylist for Samson and have him cut
his hair every day, but they forgot about
that and so his hair began to grow
again and he became again the strong man
that he was and won his greatest victory
in his death.
One of the commentators said concerning Jacob that
the hair of his consecration began to grow
again and he turned in prayer to the
Lord.
Now that that he offers is a very,
is a model kind of prayer.
Notice, it's grounded in the promises of God.
Verse 9, O God of my father Abraham
and God of my father Isaac, O Yahweh,
who didst say to me, return to your
country and to your relatives and I will
prosper you.
Notice verse 12, For thou didst say, I
will surely prosper you and make your descendants
as the sand of the sea which cannot
be numbered for multitude.
In other words, the prayer begins with the
promises of God brought to God's attention.
I suggest to you that that's a good
way to pray in 1980.
That is to bring to God the promises
that he has made to us.
For when we bring to God the promises
that he has made to us, we make
God, this is language I've carefully chosen, we
make God serve us.
Because he has committed us to his word.
He's committed to his word.
And when we come to him with his
word, we come to him with that from
which he cannot turn aside.
And so Jacob does that.
He reminds the Lord of the covenantal promises.
He approaches him as Yahweh who gave those
promises to Abraham.
He said, you said that I would prosper
when I went back into that land.
So his prayer begins properly with a recognition
of the promises that are made.
That incidentally is why prayers are made with
the beginning dwelling upon the promises that have
been made to us.
And then he makes confession because it's good
to make confession.
He says in verse 10, I'm unworthy of
all the loving kindness and all the faithfulness
which you have shown to me.
Now that's a second step in all praying,
the acknowledgement that we do not really deserve
anything of ourselves.
And finally, there comes the plea, the pleading.
That's what makes a prayer a prayer.
And so in verse 11, he says, deliver
me, I pray from the hands of my
brother, from the hand of Esau, for I
fear him lest he come and attack me,
the mothers with the children.
What a beautiful pattern of prayer, bringing to
God's attention the promises that he has made
to us.
And then the confession of unworthiness for a
true acknowledgement of what we really are before
the Lord.
And then the deliverance, the prayer, the plea,
the pleading for the blessing of God.
One might ask the question, was it a
totally sincere prayer?
Well, I'm not sure I would know how
to answer that.
I know that he immediately started planning again,
but nevertheless, he did pray, but he's a
divided man.
He's a double minded man still.
There are influences that come from the old
nature and the influences that are coming from
the new.
And so they are contending the flesh and
the spirit of fighting in Jacob's heart and
mind.
While he divides his property into droves with
shrewdness, puts himself at the end in order
that by the time he meets Esau, as
he anticipates, Esau will perhaps be placated and
accept him.
And incidentally, that statement in verse 20 is
rather interesting because it shows that pagan thinking
is directly the opposite of divine thinking.
He said, I will appease him with a
present that goes before me.
I don't accuse Jacob of being a pagan
and saying this, but I just want you
to know that he hopes that by doing
something for Esau, he will be able to
appease or propitiate Esau.
And perhaps Esau will accept him.
So he stoops to human methodology.
And that's the way man thinks that he
gains favor with God.
He thinks by doing things in the church,
he will gain favor with God or doing
things in his life.
He thinks by his culture, by his good
works, by his benevolences, even by his religious
activities, joining the church, being baptized, sitting at
the Lord's table, working in the church bazaar,
whatever it may be, getting money for the
church, being in every member canvas and all
of this kind of thing, he hopes that
he will win some points with God, appease
him, propitiate him, little realizing that the Bible
teaches the precisely opposite strategy.
That is, that God gives his blessings on
the basis of grace to those who recognize
that they have nothing with which to commend
themselves to the Lord.
But this thinking, using even scriptural words like
propitiation, appeasing, placating, because that reminds us of
the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
which is the propitiation of the holiness and
righteousness of God, satisfaction of it for us.
Though Jacob is thinking in his relationship to
Esau like pagans think in their relationship to
the Lord God.
Unfortunately, that's very common in the church of
Jesus Christ today.
Well, the latter part of the chapter records
the great encounter, the crisis in Jacob's life.
It's really Jacob's Mount Moriah experience, like Abraham
had his with Isaac on that mountain.
And in verses 22 through 25, Moses describes
the wrestling that took place between the Lord
and Jacob.
I wonder what was in Jacob's mind as
he sent his family and all of the
people across the stream and then was left
alone by himself.
Was he thinking perhaps that he could gain
the land in his own strength and by
his own efforts?
God had promised him that land.
He was going through all of these stratagems
and schemes and all of the shrewd division
of the forces.
Was he thinking that by his own wisdom
and skill, he will be able to outwit
Esau and thus win the land which God
has promised him?
Well, if he was, he learns that his
own strength and cleverness cannot deliver him.
He learns a very important spiritual truth and
to put it in the language of the
New Testament and in the language of this
experience, he learns that the sinews of the
old nature must be shriveled up so that
the strength of the new nature, activated and
enabled by the Holy Spirit, may be manifested.
In the one case, we have Jacob scheming,
but in the other case, we have him
clinging.
And there's all the difference in the world
between the scheming and the clinging that follows.
And Jacob learns that it is not by
might nor by power but by my spirit,
saith the Lord, that spiritual victories are won.
Now we read in verse 24, then Jacob
was left alone.
It was his Gethsemane.
It reminds us of the experience of the
Lord Jesus in Gethsemane, where he finally said,
Oh my God, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me.
Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.
Now the Lord Jesus never had to go
through the experience of being a supplanter to
become a prevailer.
He was always a prevailer.
But nevertheless, it was a struggle with him,
for he struggled with the will of God.
Now his struggling was not because he had
a tendency to disobey, but he had to
enter into the experience of doing the will
of God right on down to the ultimate
end of his human experience.
And in Gethsemane, it was a real struggle
with the will of God.
Now we read also in this verse that
a man wrestled with him.
What was going through Jacob's mind?
He was sitting by his fireside, perhaps, and
there came up by his side a man
who was a strange man.
And this combatant grabbed Jacob, and a wrestling
match ensued.
It was a fight, and Jacob may have
thought this is one of Esau's men.
They've already come.
And so he began to struggle.
Some of the commentators say he had a
nightmare, but I've never known of a nightmare
to leave you lame for the rest of
your life.
And in this case, it was, whatever it
was, it was a real experience of wrestling.
Now as far as the man is concerned,
Jacob probably did think it was a man
as he began this fight, this struggle.
But later on, of course, he learns that
he was more than a man, and Hosea
makes it very plain that he was God.
He prevailed with God, and so does Jacob
here in this chapter.
It's a theophany.
So he moves in his understanding of what
was happening to him, perhaps from an emissary
of Esau to the realization that this is
an emissary of God, and in fact is
God himself.
For he says, this place we'll call Panau,
for I have seen God face to face.
Now also notice it says a man wrestled
with him.
It does not say that Jacob wrestled with
the man, as if Jacob is the one
whose activity is emphasized.
The activity of the visitor is emphasized.
It is he who wrestles with Jacob.
It is God, the Lord Jesus, breaking down
the opposition of Jacob, bringing him to the
place where he realizes that he is of
himself unable to accomplish the will of God,
and the only way in which he is
to be blessed by God with the possession
of the land is through simple trust.
That land is to come to Abraham, and
to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to the
whole of the seed as a gift from
God, not by their activity.
Now Hosea added something else.
He said he wept and sought his favor.
Now that's not said in Genesis 32.
That evidently is tradition that was carried down,
and the prophet understood that tradition.
It was definitely true.
He did weep and seek the favor of
God.
It points to the method of victory by
which Jacob came to be the victor, because
you see as this struggle went on hour
after hour, and it went on from the
early evening to the next morning, because the
angel finally says, let me go, for the
dawn is breaking.
Perhaps, incidentally, he said that because it was
impossible for an individual to look upon the
face of God and live.
That incident, that by the way is also
why I think that when we get to
heaven, we will still not be able to
look upon the face of God, for we
are always creatures.
We may look upon the face of Jesus
Christ, and we are seeing God when we
see him, but the unveiled essence of the
eternal God we creatures shall never, so far
as I can tell, see.
He is one who cannot be seen, as
well as is not seen.
But anyway, this angel with whom he wrestled
for hour after hour has a reserve of
strength that Jacob does not know anything about
in the opening time of this struggle.
While the angel is the second person of
the Trinity, he wrestles with Jacob.
He brings Jacob to the place where finally
he realizes he cannot win, and then all
he does is just take his little finger
and touch Jacob in his hip joint, and
Jacob is lame for the rest of his
life.
There is an awful reserve of strength in
the second person of the Trinity, or in
our great God.
Well, when that happens, Jacob realizes that the
battle is won.
And now, so far as he is concerned,
instead of struggling, and fighting, and scheming, and
trying to overthrow this divine being, he begins
to cling, and to plead, and to plead
with tears.
Now, we know that that was true because
not only did he, in Hosea, say he
wept and sought his favor, but look at
the language of the angel in verse 26,
let me go.
Jacob is now grasping God, the Son, with
such strength that the angel of Jehovah says,
let me go.
So he's forced to cling, forced to plead,
and he cannot obtain the blessing by wrestling.
He's learned that he cannot obtain the blessing
by his scheming, and the only way in
which he can get it now is by
pleading with the second person whom he's come
to see is the Lord God.
One of the commentators has said, referring to
the fact that the name was thought to
mean a prince with God, has said that
at Pinnal, Jacob was knighted in the field.
That is, in his actual service, he became
a prince with God, and now he's called
that.
This conversation, I say, is very revealing because
it shows the struggling has become clinging, and
now the combativeness of Jacob has become dependence,
and Jacob is a broken but a blessed
man, for he's blessed by the second person.
There is nothing more glorious, my dear Christian
friends, than to throw your arms around the
Lord God and cling to him.
I want to assure you that that is
the posture of power, and Jacob has come
in his experience to realize it.
It is the posture of power to grasp
the second person of the Trinity as he
did, to grasp our God and to weep
and plead for his favor.
That's how victory comes.
That's how Jacob comes to be known as
God's fighter, or may God strive for him,
because he has prevailed by not taking the
combative, independent position, but by clinging to this
person and pleading for his favor.
That's the way of victory.
Now this critical point in Jacob's life is
the point from which all of the rest
of his life proceeds.
It was a defeat at Jabbok, and it
was a victory all in one.
The defeat of Jacob and the victory of
Israel, and the limping was a lasting proof
of the reality of the event and a
lasting reminder of the fact that Jacob of
himself will never win the blessing of God.
It is only when he pleads as a
dependent man.
I can just imagine as Jacob came back
and told the story of that, that afterwards,
whenever Jacob appeared on the horizon and the
boys were about, and with their friends, and
someone would say, there's dad, and someone else
would say, why he's limping, is that your
father?
And they would say, yes, he is limping
because he met God at Jabbok.
That was the sign, always the sign, he
met God, a man who limps with the
touch of God in his body.
Well, the chapter concludes with Jacob naming the
place Penal because he's seen God face to
face, yet his life has been preserved.
And the sun rose as he crossed over
Penual and he was limping on his thigh.
And a reference is made to a custom,
which is not found in the remainder of
the Old Testament, but is known among the
rabbis.
So it became a custom among the Jewish
people.
So Jacob has come to the crisis of
life.
He has come from sinner to saint through
faith in the Lord God.
And now he has come to the critical
point in his life as a saint, to
self-surrendering trust initiated by the sovereign grace
of God.
For this man approached Jacob and began to
wrestle with him.
And the new status meant new power.
And that comes only when our strength fails
and we begin to cling.
As Paul in a similar kind of experience
said, in weakness he had become strong.
So I speak to you who are believers
in the audience reminding you that you came
to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ because
you realized you couldn't save yourself.
That same principle holds within the Christian life.
You will never please God in your Christian
life until you see what Jacob saw, that
it is the pleading clinging person who is
the prevailing person.
May God help you to see it.
For those of you who have never believed
in the Lord Jesus Christ, the atoning sacrifice
has been offered.
God stands with the promise of forgiveness.
And if God the Holy Spirit has brought
you to a knowledge of your condition, flee
to the cross and cling to the atoning
sacrifice, you'll know the forgiveness of sins and
justification of life and begin this great Christian
experience of the walk with God.
May God help you to come to him.
Shall we stand for the benediction?
We are grateful to the Lord for these
wonderful events in the life of Jacob spelled
out so plainly and clearly.
They speak to us of the deceitfulness of
the human heart with our plans and schemes
and stratagems.
They speak to us of the necessity of
trusting thee.
Enable us, O God, to be trusters and
thus prevail us.
We thank thee for every means by which
thou dost bring us to the knowledge of
ourselves and the knowledge of our weakness and
dependence.
O God, may we cling like Jacob and
may we cling with prevailing power.
O God, bring us to the place where
truly we may in honesty say, I will
not let thee go until thou dost bless
me.
Go with us for Jesus' sake.
Amen.